


Flight

by chariset



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, F/M, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Porn With Plot, Slow Build, Vastaya
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-21 13:02:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 55,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13741449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chariset/pseuds/chariset
Summary: Alone and pursued for a crime he did not commit, Yasuo curses the mixed blessing of his vastayan heritage.  While the wind is his constant ally, he knows his resolve cannot keep him moving if his own body decides to surrender.





	1. Chapter 1

\--Part One--

 

He'd come to the lonely mound of stones to meditate, to look for some peace.  Then the wind whispered danger through his unsheathed blade, and all peace was gone. 

Above him on the rise was a young woman.  He'd seen her once before, in the Freljord snow.  He wasn't particularly happy to see her now.

"You look better without the coat," he called out to her.  He expected no answer and got none.

In the warmth of Ionia's autumn, she had stripped down to an outfit that bared most of her legs; the lines of her body were lithe, spare, but what there was of her was elastic muscle -- stalking _iothira_ , not bounding _kalemon_.  The look in her eyes was feral, and her teeth were showing.  

_Why are you hunting me?_

She descended the hill with a kind of tumbling charge, her broken blade slashing the air.  He didn't even try to meet her.  He slipped to one side, taking a glancing blow on the guard over his shoulder, and -- as she began to realize that she'd missed -- sent a gust of wind after her with a flick of his own blade.  She lost her balance, nearly fell, and he heard her hiss of discomfort as dirt and small rocks pelted her from behind.

"Dirty.  Cheap."  This was the first time he'd heard her speak.  "Stand and face me."

"Why?  So you can break me, like you broke that sword?"  He let his own teeth show.  "No thank you."

"Coward."  It occurred to him that her face might be pretty if it weren't twisted with rage.  "Fight like a man."

He answered with a single thrust that parted the grass and sent a spray of green into her face.

She lunged again.  Bits of grass were still stuck in her white hair.  As he dodged another of her wild swings, he wondered what was driving her.  No one who'd come after him had ever seemed so... desperate before.  She moved with a frantic pace, slashing at him one-handed, sometimes leaping and trying to bring her weight down on his head.  Her heavy sword seemed to drag her along behind it, each swing pulling her off balance.  It was child's work to dodge, because she couldn't change her attack once she'd committed to it.

He circled her for several minutes, waiting for her to tire.  She started to breathe harder, but her fixed stare never dropped, and still she threw the edge of her blade at him like the sword wielded her and not the other way around.

Finally, she flew at him with a leap so high she nearly went over his head, and he saw his chance.  He ducked, and then called up the wind underneath her -- the real wind -- to send her into the trees.

He realized an instant too late that her free hand had grabbed the thick brush of his hair.

Everything happened at once -- a shock of pain in his neck, his feet leaving the ground, his own gasp, a woman's scream -- and then he was on his back on the grass with her straddling him.  His sword was still in his hand, but his arm was pinned under her knee.  She leaned over him with a smile of deranged triumph.

_Laugh, Yone.  I'm going to die on your grave._

* * *

He'd been many people over the course of his life.  The bratty younger brother, the sword prodigy, the destined hero, the fugitive, the killer.  Yone had only been one -- the perfect soldier.  He'd put others above himself and duty above all, and he had never shown the world another face until the night he died.  He fell to a heart-thrust that even a novice could have dodged, and Yasuo was at the other end of the blade.

_Why didn't you parry?  Did I fail your final test?  Or was it death you wanted?_

He dug his brother's grave with the wind and buried him under stones at dawn, in the ancient Ionian tradition.  Before he let the earth cover that beloved face, he cut a lock of Yone's hair.  He broke his brother's sword and set the pieces at his head and food.  Then he took the blue and silver enameled clasp out of his own hair and left it in the dead man's hands.

_"I didn't want to believe it.  But it had to be you."_

Under the rising sun, he swore an oath that he would not rest until he found the true murderer. 

But grief clouded his mind -- and anger -- and long lonely days ground down his spirit until he scarcely had the will to make a camp.  Then chance and a Noxian wind blew a little sparrow from Shurima into his hands.  She had been good company; certainly better company to him than he was to her.  When she flew away to take up her duties to her own people, pain stung sharp in his throat, and he'd said words he regretted.  But when she left, so did the worst of his grief.  He tied up his unkempt hair and returned to his search. 

He had only one clue, but now he had a sense of what it could mean.  The people of his blood might know the answer, if he could only find a safe way to approach them.

* * *

Now that she had him pinned, the woman dropped her sword.  She didn't have any other weapons out that he could see.  But her hands were on him, touching his chest, pulling blindly on his mantle to get at more skin, and--

He doesn't want to call it seduction, but it's exactly what anyone else would call it.

"Madwoman.  Get off me."

"I need you."  She leaned forward with a raw look in her eyes.  Hunger.

 _She is like me_...

"Off!"  He tried to shove her away, but she clung.  Her legs gripped him, her skirt hiking up almost the full length of her thighs.  She rolled her hips against him as they struggled, and for an instant his senses were overwhelmed by her -- her nearness, her scent, her heat, her greed.  He felt his resistance starting to give way.

 _Ice bird, you lied to me_.

"You... don't..." he said, but even he didn't know what he meant to say.

"You need me."  The flush on her face was the most beautiful thing...

"Please..." he whispered.

Then her hand touched the chip of True Ice sealed to his chest.  He gasped as renewed cold shot through him -- and his head cleared.

His scabbard, like his sword, had a metal decoration that resembled the drifting clouds.  Without having to think about it, he drove those sculpted edges into her face, just above her nose.  She reeled back; he lunged off the ground; tumbled her over; pinned her down.  Only dimly did he realize he was straddling her over that mound of stones.

 _Hurts, doesn't it_...?

The woman grunted, but he knew she would only be stunned for a second.  He found the hilt of her sword (a tingle ran through his fingers when he seized it), raised it, and struck, quick and precise, burying the blade as deep as he could.

She cried out, arched up -- and stopped, eyes open, panting, as she realized she wasn't dead.  She looked to one side.  Her right arm was pinned to the ground, trapped in the broken center of her blade.  The sword itself was planted in the mound of stones.

Yasuo let himself breathe for a minute.  " _Xue_ ," he spat.  "Don't you know who I am?"

She lay under him, chest heaving.  He could see his own face in her wide eyes, mouth set, grim, without a trace of pity or softness. 

"Who sent you?"  He looked her over.  Her armor -- what there was of it -- was a mismatched set of pieces.  Its general crudeness made him suspect- yes, there it was.  On her shoulder was the axe symbol that he'd come to loathe, the symbol of a nation that would send a hammer to do a scalpel's job.

"Behold the Noxian conquest," he taunted.

"I..." She was still gasping. "I'm not with them."

He didn't believe that for a second.  "Who is driving you?"

"I am."

"Why?"

"I need you."  

 _Right_.  He rolled off her and stood, still feeling her hungry eyes.  "I can't help you.  Go back to Noxus." 

"Man of Ionia-"

"Don't talk to me."  He felt the thick nausea of disgust in his throat as he turned and started to walk away.

_"You're bleeding out!"_

The strength of her cry was astonishing.  He stopped and looked back at her, unable to speak.

She reached for him with her free hand.  "I can help you.  Let me help you.  Please."

He bent over her helpless body, face like a storm.  "Don't you know what I could do to you?"

Her hand touched his jaw; her stare never wavered.  "I can't watch you die."

"Hmph."  He leaned closer.  The wound he'd given her was a messy line, still bleeding.  "You attacked me."

"I had to get your attention."

"You have it."  He ran a finger down the line of her throat.  "I should kill you."

She held his gaze.  He searched the depths of her eyes for fear but saw only a burning steadiness.  It was unnerving.  "Take me."

 _She's insane.  Don't get drawn into her madness_.

" _Xue_ ," he said again.

She smiled.  "Don't you want revenge, Ionian?  Come on.  What am I going to do about it?"

Involuntarily, his eyes swept her body.  His chest still remembered the warmth of her bare thighs as she'd straddled him.  No one would care what he did to her, not even the men who wanted him dead.  He himself raided Noxian outposts and stole their supplies without hesitation.  How was she any different?

"What are you waiting for?"  Her hand traced the line of his jaw, nails scraping the stubble.

"Don't touch me," he said, not moving away.

Her eyes burned enticingly from her flushed face.  "Do you want to leave?"

 _Say yes_. 

But he felt the draw of her body like a raindrop feels the stream.  He let her hungry fingers take him in; he let their breath mingle.  Her hand moved around to the back of his neck.  He tilted her chin up.  Even then, as close as they were, he didn't know his lips had touched her forehead until he tasted blood. 

Reflex pulled him back -- no conscious thought there; it was as automatic as a flinch -- but it broke the spell.

_You-_

"Wait-" she pleaded, but he'd already scrambled to his feet.

He silently turned with his sword in his hand.  A lash of wind struck the grass inches from her body, spraying her clothes with dirt.

 _Next time, it will be blood_.

She called to him again, but he put his back to her without a word.  He might have run, but his legs were trembling and his feet had all the road sense of two blocks of wood, so he walked.  His stomach felt tight and twisted.  His mouth tasted like her blood.

And he could still see her face before his eyes -- surprised, speckled with grass, the fresh wound over her nose already sealing into a neat scar.

* * *

All things, they said, came from the vastaya.

What exactly the vastaya were, no one had been sure, but everyone said that they were part mortal and part god.  There were a hundred stories about them, and when he was little he had done his best to hear them all. 

All agreed that once, long ago, the world was nearly destroyed by terrible monsters who came out of the earth.  A tiny band of survivors sought shelter in a secret place in Ionia, and there they met the sons of heaven.  In due time the groups intermarried and produced children, and they started a new race of humans so that life on Runeterra would continue.  Such stories would have had no credence in, say, Piltover, but in Ionia they were the very water and air.

For Ionians too had their stories.  Every other child could claim ancestry from a woman who came out of the sea dressed in a sealskin, or a baby found by a hunter next to a slain  _kalemon_ , or twins who walked up to their chosen parents covered in the ash of some intense fire.  Traces of vastayan blood ran through families who otherwise looked completely ordinary, and every generation produced a handful of great men and women.

His own family had a story, and one reliable way to get him to behave was to bribe him with it.  He still remembered listening, rapt, to the twisty words in Old Ionian, with the fire casting shadows, and Yone leaning against the wall with a bored expression.

Once, in the old days, there was a hunter in the fields seeking game birds.  He startled a _kresherei_ , which flew up before his eyes with a loud whirr, and he drew his bow with excitement, because it was the largest he'd ever seen.  But the _kresherei_ , seeing the weapon, dropped her cloak of feathers and stood revealed before him as a beautiful young woman.

"O good hunter, do not shoot," she pleaded, "and I will return to you in a year and give you a son."

The hunter relented, and when he had lain with her, they parted ways.  As a token of good faith, she gave him a feather from her cloak and flew away, lamed because of the imbalance in her wings.

At the appointed time, she returned to him holding an infant.  Although young, he was already very strong and fierce.  "I have kept my word," she told him.  "Take your son and give me back my feather."

"No," the hunter said.  "Give me another son and after that I will return your feather."

The _kresherei_ was very angry, but she could not bargain.  She lay with him a second time and departed.

After another year, she returned to him with a second son.  This one was quick, with clever eyes.  But the huntsman again refused to surrender the feather.  "Give me a third son and our bargain will be complete," he told her, and again she had no choice but to comply.  But she cursed him, saying "You have overreached yourself in your greed.  If you are not content with two sons, you will not be content with a hundred."

On the third year, the hunter said to himself, "The _kresherei_ 's feather has strong magic.  When she returns, I will take my son and then kill her, so that I can have her whole cloak and all her magic will be mine."

The _kresherei_ flew in, carrying her third son in a sling around her neck.  This one was more beautiful than the sunset.  But as she circled overhead, she saw the hunter's companions in hiding with their bows drawn.  She did not land.  She dropped the infant and flew away, and where he landed, he died. 

To the end of her days, she was a lame bird, but her curse remained strong on the family.  From that time on, no descendant of the hunter and the _kresherei_ has had more than two sons. 

"Why do you like that story?" Yone would always ask.  "It was an injustice."

"Because it says we come from the wind and the birds," he would answer.

"You never listen to the whole story."

All things, all magic, come from the vastaya.  And the second son -- the one born during a violent windstorm -- never listened to his family story without the thrill of knowing that it was really all about him.

* * *

"Curse the vastaya."

_< I have always found that word interesting.>_

He looked up, interested.  "Vastaya?"

_< 'Curse.'  It seems to be your word for facts you dislike.> _

"Hm."

The eternal guardian of the Freljord's winter stretched a little in the wallow she'd scratched out of a snowdrift.  Her feathers were puffed like any bird's, and the slightest movement made them chime.  The ice-on-ice sound carried quite a distance in the cold air.

_< I have lived over a thousand years.  I will live for over a thousand more.  Then I will die, and come back, and live for many more thousands.  Is that a curse?>_

He hadn't given much thought to immortality.  "Is that how you see it?"

 _< That is the question, yes.>_  Anivia pointed her icicle of a beak at him.  _< It seems to me that the curse is in how one views it.>  _

Only a few months ago, he'd left Ionia for the first time in his life.  He'd seen the sands of Shurima, the slopes of Mt. Targon, and the bizarre and paranoid fortresses of Demacia.  The Freljord had been his last stop, and by then he had been so foot-sore and fevered that the northern snow had been a delight.  He'd waded into it with no extra clothing and been perfectly comfortable lounging on a snowbank telling a goddess his troubles.

Perfectly physically comfortable, at least.

_< You have two gifts, Man of Peace.  Why is one a blessing and one a curse?>_

He didn't have to think long.  "I control one of them, and the other is trying to control me."

 _< Your small wind magics.>_  One faceted eye flashed at him.  _< What do they benefit you?  What do they cost?>_

"What did my sword cost?  Destiny.  Duty."  He couldn't remember a time before he had a sword in his hand.  "And they give... freedom."

_< Have they not cost you your freedom?>_

"The wind is not to blame for my mistakes."

_< Has it not cost you your reputation and your brother?>_

Anger sharpened his voice.  "Do you call that the curse, then, and the rest of it the blessing?"

 _< In a word, yes.>_  He couldn't read her expression.  _< To you, the costs are overwhelming.  To me they are trivial, and far outweighed by the gains.>_

"I never asked for this."  He couldn't contain his restlessness any longer.  He stood and paced, irritated that the depth of the snow held him to a slow walk.

She didn't move.  She didn't even seem to breathe.  _< What would you, then?>_

 _I just want to see the end of the road_.

_< A companion?  Someone to stand at your back?  Safety, and a family?>_

"Yes," he admitted.  "But I want to choose those things, not have them... thrust upon me."

There was a sudden vibration of the air and snow that made the trees sparkle.  Anivia was laughing.  _< So choose, Man of Peace.  Find a home and a mate that suit you and let the nesting urge do the rest.>_

"I can't."  He wondered if oaths meant anything to a frozen spirit.  "I made a promise."

_< Can you not keep your promise with your mate by your side?>_

He looked at the trees, the air, anywhere but at her.  "There would've been no murder had I remained at my post.  The way back to my honor leads through death."

He expected her to laugh again.  She didn't.

_< I see.  You are not ready.>_

_Not ready for-_

Before he could finish the thought, the tip of her beak stabbed into his chest, just above his heart.  He gasped.

She was warm, like flesh; warmer than an actual bird's beak would have been.  Amazement held him in place, and he involuntarily reached up to touch her head.  Anivia was warm under his hands too.

As quickly as she had touched him, she moved back.  Her absence left a sudden, shocking chill.  He looked down and saw a tiny piece of True Ice sunk into his chest, turning the skin around it slightly purple.  He didn't know if he could remove it, and he was afraid to try.

 _< Do not worry.>_  She settled back down.  _< I have put a seal on your desires.  The ice will freeze your need, for a while.>_

He clutched his arms.  Without the fever in his blood, the snow was snow again.  "How long?"

_< I cannot say.  When you suppress your appetite, how long before you are hungry again?  And how much worse is your hunger for being denied?>_

"Ah."  A sudden tightness in his throat kept him from saying more.

 _It will happen again, worse than before_...

She nudged him with her beak.  _< You are a foolish man.>_

"I know."

_< You are making something hard that should be easy.>_

It was his turn to laugh.  "You sound like him."

_< Also, someone is coming.>_

He looked up.  There was a figure at the edge of the trees, bundled against the cold.  He -- she, he thought, she moved like a woman -- was making decent time through the snow.  "Does she want me or you?"

 _< You,>_ replied his companion without a pause.  _< She has followed you from the Avarosan lands.>_

He took a deep breath and drew his sword.  A low breeze came up, stirring the snow ahead of him.  He made an experimental slash and felt himself grin when a dancing column of white sprang up before his eyes. 

The wind and the powdery snow became his weapons, and his would-be assailant never had a chance.  

Oh, she was aggressive -- she went on the offensive the instant she came within reach -- but she never touched him.  Wherever she was, he wasn't.  She met curtains of blowing snow no matter how she turned, and he danced on the outside, thrilling to the freedom he thought he'd never feel again.  She couldn't see him, and all he saw of her were the uneven points of her broken sword flashing through the cloud. 

After several minutes, he started to hear her breathing, frustrated and uneven.

He sent another spray of snow at her.  "Take off the coat.  It's slowing you down."

The broken sword immediately slashed in the direction of his voice.  It was a savage stroke, hard and fast enough to raise a minor snowstorm of its own, but he was already elsewhere.

 _I'm enjoying this far too much_.

Finally, the woman broke free of the snowstorm.  Her face was flushed with rage and her teeth showed; her eyes found his and pierced him with the intensity of her focus.  She started to charge, and he raised his blade, dimly regretting that he'd have to kill her.

_< She is out of her head, Man of Peace.>_

With no warning, a range of ice erupted from the snow between the woman and himself.  It nearly took off the tip of his sword, and he stumbled back, staring blankly.

_< Take your chance and flee.  I will explain things.>_

He couldn't gather his thoughts enough to answer her.  He turned and ran with his blade still in his hand, and windblown snow surged up behind him and covered his tracks.

* * *

_Madwoman._

Why had his thoughts turned to her again? 

It was well after dark and he'd never been discovered inside this old tree.  Even his cache of supplies was undisturbed.  He should feel as safe as he ever did, but...

_"You're bleeding out!"_

He leaned against the curving wall of his shelter, clutching a goathair cape to his chest.  It smelled like the man who had given it to him -- masculine and a touch unwashed -- it also smelled like goat, wood smoke, and the homey scents of leather, honey, and a bit of tobacco.  He felt calmer holding it, but he also felt more alone.

 _She's right, you know_.

"No.  I have enough time."

 _There's no cure_.

"There doesn't have to be one."

He reached into his bag, found his old reed flute, and turned it over and over in his hands.  Then he took out a smooth white stone with grey veins.  It fit comfortably in his hand, but holding it for any length of time made his fingers go numb.  This was Demacian petricite, that odd anti-magic substance they used to build their gleaming walls.

 _They fear the sea who only walk on land_.

The winged colossus who'd given it to him had been a delight, though.  He wished they could meet again.

He set the stone down and took out a gem on a long chain.  This had been a gift from a man he could only describe as beautiful.  It was rough, uncut, but it had a certain ice-crystal beauty of its own.  The other man had called it a piece of the stars.

_He found me when I was down on the ground, too sick to move, out of my head.  Anyone else would have-_

He closed his eyes, but he couldn't escape the memory of being struck down by his own need.  He'd never dreamed he'd beg anyone for anything, let alone do it while clinging to another man's ankles.

 _That will happen again, and worse_.

He looped the chain around his neck and pressed the gem against the piece of ice in his skin.  A healing cold locked up all his muscles and forced the breath out of him in a groan, but when it had passed he felt warmer and calmer.

"It will not happen tonight.  It will not happen tomorrow."

 _But it will happen_.

He put the gem away and looked at the rest of his treasures.  The goathair cape, the little pottery flask, those had no magic that he knew of.  But they held pleasant memories.  Braum, that mountain of a man, and his tiny puffball friends, so well suited to the frozen north.  Taliyah, the little desert sparrow, so eager to show him her home, to show what she'd learned, to prove herself to him.  She'd introduced him to everyone as her mentor.  She had been so _proud_ of him.

Outwardly he'd shown nothing when he called up little dust devils for their amusement, but inwardly he'd smiled.

And the last...

He opened the tiny silk bag and took out the lock of dark brown hair.  He held it to his nose for just a second and then put it away.

 _How I wish_.

He lay down at last, putting his cheek to the good Ionian earth.  He was near the border of the vastayan lands.  Tomorrow, he had to believe, tomorrow he'd have answers.


	2. Chapter 2

He heard the running footsteps just in time to get up a tree.  It was no cover, but he'd found that those who hunt on the ground don't always look up.

Below, a small figure labored up the path.  A suggestion of feathers showed under his hood, and his clawed feet left scratches in the dirt.  He paused, ducked behind Yasuo's tree, and looked back, obviously expecting pursuit.  He was out of breath; his narrow shoulders were bowed as he clung to the trunk.

 _He won't escape.  He's left too much of a trail_.

Besides the deep-dug claw marks, shining dots showed where the young vastayan had gone.  Blood.

More footsteps, heavier this time.  He thought he could hear two men.  The child hiding behind the tree didn't move, but he had no good options.  There was no way for him to run without being seen, and very little chance he wouldn't be discovered if he stayed put.  Yasuo could see the sad drama below as if it had already happened.

 _I should stay out of this_.

He reached down anyway.

The vastayan gave a squeak when a hand grabbed his collar, but Yasuo was able to sweep him up and clamp his face in the crook of his elbow in time to cut the sound off.  

"Don't scream.  Don't move." 

He couldn't tell if the child understood him.  He went quiet, but so would anyone in the grip of utter fear.  Trying not to panic him further, Yasuo slowly drew his sword.

Down on the trail, the men came into view.  They were large -- he was impressed; he'd always thought of the vastaya as a slightly-built race -- and if the child were modeled on a bird, these were built on bears.  The child made a whimper when he saw them.  His heart pounded against Yasuo's ribs in a rapid-fire cadence.  His desperation could not have been more obvious.

He ignored the boy and watched the men.  They stopped at the end of the trail and paused, looking left and then right.  One of them had a heavy blunt weapon, like a cudgel, and the other had a bow.  Then they separated, walked a couple of paces, scanning for signs of their prey.

Just as he was beginning to hope they wouldn't look up, one of them did.

 _Well, of course_.

He left the child on the branch and dived, blade downward.  It hit the cudgel man between his neck and his collarbone and sank to the hilt with all of Yasuo's weight behind it.  The instant his feet met the doomed vastayan's shoulders, he kicked off, gripping the hilt with both hands, and landed.  His blade came free, red the entire length.  The man collapsed without a sound.

The archer had already drawn his bow, but Yasuo was faster.  He raised a counter-blast that broke the arrow in mid-flight.  The man turned to run, but all that meant was that he was struck down from behind.  He made it a few more steps, then collapsed, then went down on his side.  The cudgel man was already dead.

He cleaned the blade on the archer's cloak, trembling between the elation of combat and the sickness that followed.

_Two more.  But who's counting?_

He turned around.  The vastayan child was coming down from the tree.  He skirted the still-bleeding corpse of the cudgel man and then ran to Yasuo in such a direct line that he had to fight the reflex to raise his blade.  The child took his free hand, tugged on it, then ran back up the trail.

The simple trust in that gesture struck him dumb.  Without a word, he sheathed his sword and followed.

* * *

The child's companion lay in a trampled hollow just off the trail.  He was facedown.  His lower clothing had been stripped off and left in shreds around his ankles.  There was no mistaking the finger bruises already rising on his pale skin, the blood from his mouth, the smears of more blood between his thighs...

Yasuo stood silent, fixing the picture in his mind.

At the sight of him, the vastayan child cried out.  He went to his knees beside... his friend? his brother? and tried to wake him, but the other boy was unresponsive.  His head lolled when the child turned him over, and his eyelids were purple and probably too swollen to open.  The first child looked around blankly, tears starting to spill down his face.

Their helplessness ignited something in his heart, something white-hot and blinding.  Any remorse he might have felt over killing the two men evaporated.  He walked up slowly, though he wasn't sure what he intended to do.  The boy he'd rescued looked at him without a word, his eyes asking for something Yasuo wasn't sure he could give.

He found his sword in his hand with no memory of drawing it; it trembled with his pulse.  He was prepared to end the boy's pain, even in front of his friend.  But he was just as ready to bury the blade to the hilt in the body of anyone who tried to touch them.

Someone unwisely picked that very moment to ambush him.

Movement in the bushes caught his eye; he turned, arm flicked, blade flashed.  He saw a glimpse of a face, heard a grunt; the child screamed from the ground, and then he was standing between the children and the threat, glancing with mild surprise at the blood on his sword.

_How many?_

He turned in a circle, cursing himself for not noticing what a deathtrap the place was.  There was brush and small trees all around, high as a man, perfect cover for an archer.  His skin prickled.  Did someone have an arrow trained on them right now?   

A flash of his sword called the wind.  He fed it power and set it spinning.  A maelstrom spiraled out from him and scoured the leaves off every nearby bush; the circling walls of debris destroyed the grove.  He continued to shove the circle out further, spin it faster, until he exposed his attackers and forced them to stand before them.

One by one, they lost their battle against the flying debris.  The three men who finally stumbled into the clearing were all built large and all armed.  Two had swords and the third a club.  One man, clutching his side, was like the bear-men; one had the crown of a stag; the third was large, bull-necked, and reminded him of the humpbacked creatures who roamed the plains.

He lowered his sword, and the wind died.  A ring of leaves and twigs dropped to the ground.

 _"Vetanyi!"_ whispered the stag-man.  Yasuo was surprised to recognize the Old Ionian for "windblade."

 _"Vetanyii s'erru do entamiyii,"_ replied the _bosin_ -man.  Then he smirked.  _"Grenian dou **jer-am**."_

He waited for them, standing between the men and the children, frightened only that he was not more frightened.

The injured bear-man was the first to move.  He raised his club and began to roar-- but a beginning was all he got.  Yasuo met him with a straight-line thrust, a heart-thrust with the wind behind it; his head rolled forward and he collapsed.

 _Yone_...

He hoped his face showed nothing.  The only way to win this kind of fight was to keep his enemies wary, make them reluctant to go in.  If he betrayed any weakness, the two of them would rush him together and he would have no chance.

But while the bear-man was still gasping on the ground, the _bosin_ turned to the stag and said something.  The taller man ran, his antlers bouncing through the scattered brush.  He was on his way, no doubt, to spread the word.

 _Two hours in vastaya territory and already making enemies_.

The other man stepped forward, making a show of not raising his sword.  It was impressive how smoothly his animal features blended with his human face: he had a broad, flat nose and a bulging forehead, emphasized by the woolly tuft of hair.  His shoulders were heavy and hunched, and his broad chest was covered in a thick leather plate.  His eyes kept going from Yasuo to the children behind him.

The Ionian angled his blade across his body but didn't otherwise take a defensive stance.

 _"Y vetanyi jer-am?"_   The other man seemed to find his resistance amusing.  

There was that word again.  He recognized the root for "man," but it seemed to have a feminine modifier.

"Turn or die," he replied in Old Ionian.

The man smiled.  "You first."  He straightened up and planted his sword in the dirt.  With unhurried fingers, he started to open the front of his trousers.

 _This won't end the way you think it will_.

The _bosin_ exposed his _iktil_ and raised it to full mast with a few quick strokes of his hands.  Then he advanced on Yasuo, looking him squarely in the eye. 

He had always known that if there were men like him in the world, men that were prey, there must also be men that were predators.  Instinct told him this was one, and he braced for the attack.  With True Ice over his heart and outrage still roaring in his head, he almost felt ready.

Seconds later, he realized he wasn't.

The wave of raw masculinity that rolled ahead of the _bosin_  struck like a hammer and nearly knocked him to his knees.  He struggled to keep calm as it overwhelmed each of his senses in turn. 

Scent first: musky, sweaty; a salt he could taste on the back of his tongue.  Heat: from the center of his own body and radiating from the other man.  Sound: he could hear nothing but the man's breathing.  Sight: perspective failed, thought fled.  The _bosin_ 's rounded shoulders loomed over him the way close hills block the sky.

He tried to remember to fight, but he was awash in the very thing that blurred memories.

_This is not who I am._

He summoned all his will, but he couldn't stop his physical reaction.  He gasped for breath.  His face burned.  The other man reached _over_ his sword to grab his jaw and he found he couldn't resist.  He felt his head forced down.

_This is not what I want._

It felt like some other man going to his knees before the _bosin_.  He saw the sword across his lap just briefly before the hand turned his face up, guided his mouth to the jutting _iktil_ , reddened and hard.  The other man didn't force himself inside, but he didn't have to.  The scent, the heat of that member held his body captive, and...

_This is not going to happen._

...and...?

 _This is **not** going to happen_.

He broke out at last.  Oh, his body felt the pull -- even now his mouth watered for that purple head, his jaw ached for the discomfort of stretching open to receive it -- but he could ignore it.  And now that he could see the other man for what he was -- a target who had foolishly abandoned his best protection -- he also saw the route left unguarded for his own blade. 

Without a moment's hesitation, he took it. 

He thrust his sword up into the _bosin_ 's abdomen through his exposed lower stomach, seeking the path under his ribs, trying to pierce his heart.  In the second between his strike and the man's reaction, he knew he had missed, but when he yanked the sword out again, a torrent of blood and sour-smelling liquid poured out over his hands.

 _Dead in hours, not seconds.  Still dead_.

The _bosin_ crumpled and sank to the ground.  His body shook with convulsive breaths.  A few seconds later, Yasuo realized it was laughter. 

"Won't he enjoy you?"

He put the tip of his sword to the dying man's throat.  Those eyes were still hungry for him; that mouth leered... and he still felt the urge to give in.

He cut off the _bosin_ 's life with a flick of his wrist and turned away.

* * *

Hours later, he sat in the mouth of a cave, watching low clouds roll in and drinking a skin of wine.  It wasn't wise, but he was still rattled, and it was very good wine.

 _Too good for a troop of brigands to carry around_.

The wine was just another question among many.  He'd found so many oddities when he went though their belongings.  There were Ionian coins in their purses.  Their clothing and armor seemed a little too new, a little too clean.  Two of them had been wearing pendants with a star symbol on them.  And then there was the matter of the children...

_Will the boy make it?_

He'd made sure both of them were hidden away before he went to strip the bodies.  The crystal from Targon had closed up the other boy's light wounds, so he'd left it around the brother's neck and hoped for the best.  They were both sleeping now, overcome by a combination of stress, injury, and watered-down Shuriman mead.  He still knew nothing about them: not their ages, their relationship, or even their names.

He felt a twinge and forced himself to focus on the leather breastplate lying across his lap.  It had no marks, not even a scratch.  It looked like it was made days ago.  Vastayan raids were nothing unusual, but no raider had armor like this.  Vastayan armor was good or new but never both.

 _Armor needs an armory.  Armories need a town.  No vastayan towns here_.

And then there was the bolting stag.  He knows what a man sent for backup looks like.  But even though he'd spent at least an hour getting everything useful off the bodies and dragging the corpses away, he hadn't seen any of their reinforcements.  So their base, wherever that might be, must be some distance away.

_They move like bandits but look like an army.  They strike at a distance but carry bread that was baked this morning.  What makes sense?_

"They've taken a town," he answered out loud.

 _Seons'e_.

He leaned back and closed his eyes.  He didn't want to see what had become of his hometown.

_I have to go back eventually._

He'd heard that the Noxians had breached the wall but failed to hold the town.  Some Ionians gloated that they had broken under the weight of a guilty conscience, but persistent harassment from the vastaya was more likely the reason.  It wasn't a stretch to assume a roaming band had eventually grown strong enough to take over.  For all he knew, that was why-

 _No.  I don't know_.

They'd called him _vetanyi_ -

 _Stop_.

Hope had let him down before.  So had conclusions too hastily reached.  He couldn't make too much of a single word.

He cast around for something else to think about, and found his thoughts returning to the Noxian madwoman.  Was she still after him?  Had she found the place where he'd slaughtered four men?

Xue, _your brothers are feasting tonight_.

He'd noted with distaste that the _bosin_ had died with an erection.

_Tell them to eat that first._


	3. Chapter 3

He woke up unusually drowsy the next morning.  Rain had moved in overnight; water dripped from every leaf.  But the cave was dry, and the extra padding of all the bandit clothing made it practically cozy.  His back felt warmer than usual, though...

 _The boy_...

"Children?" he called, as gently as he could.  When no one answered, he rolled over, dreading what he might find.

They were curled up together in a ball of pale skin and dark hair.  He watched without moving until he could see they were both breathing.  Pain rose in his throat; tightness in his chest.  He knew how fragile their peace was.

He turned away, looking at the bit of the world visible through the cave mouth.  Pre-dawn Ionia was all greys and greens, and the patter of the rain surrounded them.  Inside, all was calm.  Outside was everything he didn't want to face.

It was the wine that eventually forced him out.  He had to take care of morning business, and he wanted a sprig of mint to chew on and tame his breath.  He stood in the rain long enough to resign himself to discomfort (when his hair got wet, it never seemed to dry), sighed, and stretched.  Both arms, both legs, shoulders, back...

With the tip of his blade touching the ground, he went into a sword dance.

Dance and combat were both considered performing arts in Ionia.  Grace, precision, and efficiency were the hallmarks of good bladework, and nothing put that to the test like trying to dance a Shape.  His particular school had fourteen of them, and it took over an hour to dance them all.

The sword drew a pattern in the ground as he moved through the first five.  The steps were easy; what was difficult was to hold the blade angled just so, not bending too much or too little, not leaving the ground but not digging too deep -- and, of course, not stepping on any of the lines.  He had seen blade dancers who drew with unconscious freedom, without any visible effort, sometimes with their eyes closed.  But he was always watching the blade with the corner of his eye, always measuring his steps, counting, counting, counting...

He went on through the sixth.  The seventh was his favorite.  He danced a circle around the sword and the wind swirled around him.  But the eighth was harder, and by the ninth his line was no longer clean.  At the last turn, he decided it was enough of a warm-up and came to a halt.  He blade dragged to the line he'd started at the very beginning and merged with it with only a minor flaw.

 _I never had the patience for more than 'good enough'._  

He flicked the bit of mud off his blade.  Ideally it landed somewhere in the center of the pattern, but he was happy if it didn't land on one of the lines.

He felt the pressure of eyes on him and looked up.  Out of the mouth of the cave, two faces stared at him.  They looked so much like baby _rakkuni_  peering down from a tree that he couldn't suppress a smile.

* * *

Their names, he learned, were Gili and Vaska.  They were brothers -- non-identical twins, in fact -- which was common among the vastaya.  They called themselves, with some pride, _mataya-ki_ , of which "Children of the Maker" was a rough translation.  It took him a while to work out the full meaning of the name.

Vastayan legend said that the Old Ones were not male and female but _matayi, tellei,_ and _shirimi_.  _Matayi_ was a complex term that meant 'makers,' in the sense of trees making leaves, or springs making water.  _Tellei_ had the more straightforward meaning of 'protectors'.  _Shirimi_ meant 'helpers.'  Reproduction as they understood it meant a _tella_ joining with a _mataya_... all of which would have been academic except that the day came when  _tella_ entered Woman and _mataya_  embraced Man. 

When Yasuo realized where this was going, he felt a twist in the pit of his stomach.

The first generation of vastaya were male or female but also _matay, tella_ , or _shirimu_.  Those who combined _matay_ and female were the great Mothers of the vastaya; their names were all recorded and remembered to this day.  Vaska was named for one.  Those who combined _tella_ and male were the great Fathers and were also honored, though they were not held in such esteem.  Those who combined male or female with _shirimu_ became the majority and eventually formed the backbone of vastayan society.

Those who combined _matay_  with male or _tella_  with female were the rarest of all, and they were considered closest to the divine.  Most vastaya revered them, though they stopped short of actual worship.

_How did sacred people end up in the hands of raiders?_

He wanted to ask, but even he could tell that Vaska's sanity depended on blocking out the memory of those men.  So -- in between scouting a safe route, trying to keep his bearings without using the main road, and watching for possible pursuers -- he tried to learn why the _mataya-ki_ were so valuable.

Ultimately it came down to numbers.  The relatively-sexless _shirimi_ strain meant that vastayans weren't very fertile.  While human men could conceive a child almost all of their adult life, vastayan men were far more limited.  And women typically gave birth just once, usually to twins.  Only _mataya-ki_ and _tella-ki_  could surpass those restrictions and bear more children.  Without them, the vastayan race would dwindle and eventually die out.

 _Not a bad life, if it suits you.  If it doesn't, I suppose it's just a sacrifice you make for your tribe.._.  

He understood sacrifice.  What he didn't understand was the rest of it -- except the obvious.  There was a name for what he was.  And that name carried with it a responsibility for the future of the vastaya.

_Sorry.  I'm already scheduled to be cut down like a criminal.  One destiny at a time, please._

As for the childbearing part of things, he ignored it; it was simply too odd for him.

* * *

There had been no question about the two boys traveling with him.  From the time he first learned their names, they'd been attached to him.  Nor had he even briefly entertained the thought of pointing them toward the main road and wishing them well.  

 _I may need a guide among the vastaya, and I still need answers_.

"You just don't want to be alone," he muttered.

They spoke a sort of Ionian pidgin and Old Ionian with an odd accent.  Trying to understand them had made his head hurt at first, but after a while he started to enjoy the mental exercise.  Language -- and swordplay -- had been the only subjects he'd really enjoyed, and he was one of  a small group of students who wanted to learn the Old Tongue.  Apparently the dialect he'd learned was the priestly one, and the children (to his mild amusement) considered him something of a monk.

It didn't translate into diffidence, at any rate.  Gili, the talkative one, had peppered him with so many questions that he'd finally had to set up a one-for-one system (useful for finding out so much about the vastaya).  What was the thing on his shoulder?  Why did his mantle have so many tears in it?  How long was his sword?  Was it heavy?  Was it expensive?  Could he see it out of its sheath again?  Did he ever take his hair down?

Vaska said little and tried to avoid meeting his eyes, but he stayed close.  He also had a fascination with the sword, one that Yasuo recognized as worrisome.  His school had a term for it: sword hunger, the belief that a sword would fix all your problems.  The last thing you gave to someone with sword hunger was an actual sword.

 _Still_...

When he looked down on their heads, on the grayish-brown hair that faded seamlessly into feathers, he felt the pain in his throat again.  There had to be something he could put between them and the world.

The first night of their journey, he let them have a look at the weapons he'd taken from the bandits.  To his relief, Vaska's interest in the sword dropped rapidly once he tried to handle one himself; the bandit blades were heavy, utilitarian, and none too balanced.  He did better with a pair of small daggers, probably just the bandits' everyday knives; they were small, easy to conceal, and wouldn't require much strength.  Yasuo set him some easy strike patterns to practice and went to check on his brother.

Gili had some previous training with a bow.  The one they'd salvaged was a little stiff on the draw, and there weren't many arrows for him to practice with, but he could fire a good grouping.  Yasuo called a halt when the light dimmed and judged it a good start.

_Good start to what?_

He collected the arrows slowly, trying to ignore the question.

"Yasu-aki?" Gili's voice interrupted his thoughts.  "Where are we going?"

"To Seons'e, my old town."  He carried the little bundle of arrows over to their camp, where Vaska had already started the fire.

"Why?"

Why, indeed.  "Why not to your home?" he asked back.

"Yes."

"Can you get home by yourself?  Do you know where your home is from here?"  _Can Vaska travel that far?_

"No," Gili admitted.

"Then you'll have to travel with me for a while.  And I need to go to Seons'e."

"Why?" came the inevitable question.

He hesitated.

"We are _mataya-ki_.  Our people need us."

"I will not take you away from your people."  The Old Ionian words fell awkwardly from his mouth.  "But I need to go to Seons'e."

Gili fixed him with his pale yellow eyes.  _"Why?"_

Their fire whipped in a sudden, sharp breeze  Yasuo quickly looked down to make sure his blade was still in its shealth.

"Yours for mine?"  It was the name of the question game he'd been playing with Gili, but it wasn't Gili who had spoken.

 _I got myself into this_.  "All right, Vaska.  You first."

"Why aren't you taking us home?"

"I don't know where your home is."

"Why don't you have-"

Yasuo shook his head.  "My turn.  Why did you leave?"

Gili looked at his twin.  " _Mataya-ki_  usually leave their home village at our age and settle somewhere else.  We expected another town to send us an invitation.  So when those men came..."

"We went with them."  Vaska wouldn't meet his eyes, and his tone was flat.

Yasuo dug in his pack for one of the star-marked pendants.  Neither boy would even look at it.

"They might have taken a city.  An Ionian city"  He tilted the silver disc back and forth on his palm.

"How do you know?" Gili asked.

"Bandits don't have emblems.  Only armies do."  He glanced up, but they were both looking at the fire.  "Why do the Children of the Maker leave home?"

"We have a duty to spread out."  As usual, Gili was doing all the talking.  "Our gift is for all the vastaya."

 _Besides, living too near to close relatives probably wouldn't be good for the line_.  " _Mataya-ki_ are rare?"

Rare and growing rarer.  He was able to get quite a few answers out of Gili before the child remembered the rules of the game.  The vastaya were currently in a quiet crisis, largely based on their declining birth-rate.  _Mataya-ki_ were still consistently fertile, but fewer pregnancies meant fewer of them too.  More than that, there was growing resentment among villages who sent _mataya-ki_ away and received none in return.

The rebellion leaders claimed that Ionian encroachment was sapping the land of its native magic, killing the vastaya by inches.  Both of the boys had grown up believing that to be true.  But Yasuo thought of the stoneweavers, the woodweavers, the majestic halls in Seons'e whose foundations merged seamlessly with the grass -- maybe Noxus or Demacia were at war with the magic in the earth, but Ionians understood it as a sailor knows the sea.

_Are we truly killing the vastaya?_

"That is why we need to go home," Gili finished.  "You can come.  Are you not _mataya-ke?"_

He tried not to flinch.

"Does that question pain you?"  Vaska put a hand on his.

"I don't like to be reminded," he said slowly.  "I can feel it pulling me away from what I need to do."

"And what is that?"

Any time, any other place, he would have refused to answer.  But with the little vastayan -- the little vastayan he'd seen _brutalized_ only yesterday -- looking up to him with total trust, silence would have been... cruel.

So he told them.

He saw it in their eyes that they didn't blame him, they forgave him, they understood.  But, as always, pride guarded the door of his soul and wordlessly refused all their gifts.

 _Only those I've wronged can forgive me.  I need to pay the debt, but not to you_.

* * *

Late afternoon on the next day, they were less than a mile from Seons'e.  He waited on the trail while the boys each climbed a tall tree.

He'd spent a lot of the night thinking, and by early morning he'd had a new approach.

"Let's redeem the time," he'd said.  "You left your village as victims.  You don't have to return that way."

They'd looked at him with the head tilt of a confused _varnde_.

"War always needs messengers.  These bandits are criminals.  The vastayan leaders don't know what they've done.  And they won't know, unless someone brings news back."

Vaska understood at once.  "We need to see their city."

"Yes.  You need to come with me to Seons'e.  Not for me, but for your people."

That had been enough to get the two of them on board.  Now he waited, looking in all directions for trouble and shifting his weight from one foot to the other.  

Gili was the first down from the tree.  "The wall is breached."

Noxian war machines.  They'd come from the sea with remarkable quickness not long after Elder Souma was found dead.  "Is anyone in the town?"

"Yes.  There are flags, and smoke."  He was excited.  "Vastayan."

"There are dogs and children playing in the fields."  That was Vaska.

 _Is it just a civilian village?_   "Do you see the star mark anywhere?"

"No, but I can't tell from here," Gili said.

It sounded safe enough to approach.  They'd traveled cautiously up to now, watching for scouts, traps, or signs that indicated a robber group's claim.  There'd been nothing.

"Stand behind something," he said.  "I'm going to call the wind."

He faced away from the city and swept his blade forward, drawing down a breeze.  The scents on it were faint -- bread, wood smoke, leather, whiff of sewer -- but simple village scents.  He turned to his right and called the wind again: no scents but forest.  He turned around and called the wind from their other side-

Putrefaction. The sickly-sweet stench of rotting flesh was almost an assault.

"Something is dead near here," Vaska whispered.

Yes indeed.  Of course, it might be an animal, or a hunter's kill...

Motioning for silence, Yasuo sheathed his sword and led them toward the scent.  

The trail led down a slope.  Long before they were close enough to see anything, they heard the harsh voices of the _xuei_.  The scent of rot was mixing with water and mud.

 _These are a lot of scavengers for a simple kill_.

He almost sent the boys back then, but...

 _If they're going to be warriors, they need to start_.

Then they rounded a clump of reeds and even he felt queasy.

Bodies.  Many of them were just scattered bones, but one was still fresh enough to attract the carrion birds.  They were spread around a swampy area formed where a creek had settled and puddled.  They looked a bit human, but not exactly.

 _These are vastaya_.

"Vaska, don't look."  His voice came out so strained he almost didn't recognize it.

Gili made a sound like a sob.

He walked in, moving the _xuei_ aside gently with his scabbard.  They didn't fly at his approach, merely waddled a few steps aside.  

 _Well fed.  Fearless.  They eat here often_.

The freshest body had been wrapped in a rough sack.  A dark line around the throat suggested the cause of its -- her -- death.  She had been young.

 _Oh_...

He walked away, struck numb by what he'd just realized.

"Gili," he said quietly.  "Is this the funeral custom of your people?"

"No."  It was just a whisper.

He led them away.  He didn't turn back, and he drew them far into the woods, holding each one by the hand.

 _This is what happens to the missing_ mataya-ki.

* * *

They didn't go into town that night.  He plied them with the last of the mead, and none-too-watered either, and he drank the last of the wine.  When numbed calm had covered their camp, he sat in the moonlight with the handful of bandit's coins on his palm.  Mixed in with the vastayan tokens were coins he knew.

Clean, sharp, recent...

_Ionian_

...coins.

No one was there to see him as he tilted his head back and wept in shame. 


	4. Chapter 4

The road was a marvel.  It looked like a million stones had been persuaded to float to the surface and turn their smoothest sides upward.  Naturally, both Gili and Vaska claimed that exactly that had happened.

"We are vastayan.  The land knows us," said Gili with pride.

A velvet layer of moss filled the borders between the stones.  Not even Ionians could have built such a road, though they did it better than the rough work of the Noxians.

"Do you know this road?" Yasuo asked.

"This is a trade road."  Vaska pointed to a pole with multicolored ribbons hanging from it.  "It connects _vashta'raei_ to your people."

To the town, then.  To Seons'e.

"As long as I lived here, we never knew about this road," he said.  "There was only the sea route and the west road."

Gili looked out at the coast.  Even at this distance, it was possible to see the remains of Noxian vessels that choked the harbour.

Yasuo followed his gaze.  "Yes.  And the west road runs through Eritu Dono'e."

Both boys looked up sharply, since the words directly translated to "Valley of Death."

He shrugged.  "It wasn't always called that."

They had spent the day thus far walking a careful route around Seons'e.  As before, they met no sentries.  The trade road was broad and unguarded, and the town itself looked like any civilian settlement.  The sounds of everyday life echoed carelessly off the forest.  These were people who had never known war.

_I can see how a road like this would bring vastaya in, but how are Ionians getting here?_

The central complex that used to house the school was intact, and it flew the star-marked banners of the bandits.  Well.  No surprise there.  The bandit group was anchoring the town, defending it and the surrounding areas so well that civilians felt safe there.  Distasteful to have bandits as customers, he supposed, but stolen money is still money.  They certainly weren't the first to decide that it was better to sell to criminals than to be robbed by them.

He led the way around the north side of Seons'e, calling the wind to him to keep their scent from carrying to the dogs.  There were some very small fields in crops -- gardens, not true farms -- some land in pasture, and some left open.  He couldn't see enough livestock or produce to account for the place's wealth.  Why was there a trade route through a town that didn't seem to have anything to trade?

_Maybe they're just a hub.  It's worked well enough for Piltover_...

They slipped along the coastline.  Gili and Vaska stumbled more than once on the rocky shore, forgetting to watch their footing.  Seons'e's harbor was bounded on the west by a long rocky spur where the mountains ran directly into the sea.  The bones of Noxian ships stood high above the water line, monuments to a nation's spite.  Those few which hadn't sunk under Ionian fire had been deliberately run aground, clogging the sea road and denying Seons'e one of its treasures.

That ridge of mountains -- locals called it the Spine -- had stymied all further Noxian progress for a while.  The former west road had been a switchback track over the foothills and a bridge over the next valley, but their would-be conquerors had found both unsuitable for their war machines.  They destroyed the bridge and gouged a path through the hills, abandoning their earth-moving machines as they burned out.  After months of work (slowed by constant Ionian sabotage), the Noxians were able to get a siege engine through, but ultimately they'd given up when the spring rains mired its wheels and turned their new road to mud.  Even now, the scar was an ugly thing.  One of them -- Vaska, he'd guess -- gasped when he saw it.

The Ionians had apparently done what they could to salvage the road, ugly though it was.  The ravaged banks had been reinforced with rough stone, and the bed was made of squared stones and mortar.  It was smooth, broad, and uniformly pale.

Gili ran onto the surface with evident glee.  "These are Ionian roads, Yasu-aki?"

Yasuo knelt to run a hand over the surface.  The blocks were firm and level.  "This used to be the main road to Seons'e."

"So this connects your people to the vastaya."  Vaska had joined his brother to play on the road.  "How solid it is."

His brother was less diplomatic.  "A knife to every stone!  Vastayans would ask them to square themselves."

"I'm sure," he said absently.

Vaska hopped on one foot from block to block.  "Your people did as well as they could."

"Doesn't that surprise you?"

"How so?"  Vaska stood balanced on his clawed toes.

"The town was breached and left to the vastayans.  Why build a road to it?"

"They must have meant to come back."  Gili was unconcerned.

Yasuo shook his head.  "There's nothing here."  He gestured at the rusting-out hulk of the nearest war machine.  "There are relics in the field and ghosts in the valley.  Who would come back?" 

And yet they had, and still were, judging by the fresh Ionian coins in his purse.

_How?  How could you?_

They'd all woken up a bit muddled that morning.  Through some unspoken accord, none of them had talked about what they'd seen the night before, but he hadn't forgotten and he doubted the boys had either.

_How could you do business with men who kidnap and ruin children like these...?_  

"Why does it bother you?" Gili asked as they looked for a shady spot to sit down.  "Ionians have always tried to hold their claims."

"There's nothing to hold.  There's nothing left.  What Noxus couldn't take, they destroyed. It's their way."

"What is Noxus?"  The word sounded odd in Vaska's accent.

"Conquerors from over the sea."  He frowned; the Old Ionian _trestu'rai_ was too noble.  "Bandits.  Vandals.  They are blocked on their own continent, so they are trying to take ours."

"'Ours'."

He turned his head at the touch of mockery in Gili's voice.  "Ours.  Ionia."

"This valley is called the Well of Sunset.  The bay is called the Eye of the Sea.  It was vastayan land for a thousand generations, and you call it yours."

"You call it yours based on stories and legends."  Yasuo knew he shouldn't rise to the taunt, but he was stung.

"Our legends are ancient... and true."

"Stories are like men."  He touched his chest to feel the comforting chill of True Ice.  "The old ones may be wise, but the ancient ones have no teeth and spout nonsense."

A burst of real anger made Gili's feather-hair puff out.  "Do not mock!  I told you, the very land remembers us."

Vaska said something in rapid-fire vastayan, but Gili would not back down. 

" _Our_ life-blood is in _our_ land, and every day our magic grows dimmer."

"Ionians didn't do _that_."  Yasuo gestured at the raw wound in the hills. "Ionians walk in step with the land."

"The best of Ionia comes from the vastaya.  All things come from the vastaya."

_This thorn in my flesh comes from the vastaya._   But he managed to keep it behind his teeth.

Vaska had turned his back on both of them.

_What would Yone say?_   "It is a foolish thing to see the tribe before the man.  Judge one by what he does, not what he is called."

"Even Noxians?" asked Gili.

He laughed without humor.  "When I meet one who isn't holding a blade to my throat, I'll let you know."

Vaska turned around.  "And what do the Noxians think of you?"

"Who can say?"  He sighed, stood up, and brushed himself off.  "Likely the same as Ionians." 

"And they?"

"To them I am  _vetani vetanige sh'e._ "  A sword without a sheath.  "I have no home.  I move from one corpse to the next."

"You are a _mataya-ke_ of vastaya.  Are you not rather a sheath without a sword?"

The joke -- from Vaska of all people -- startled an honest laugh out of him.  "Who can say?" he said again.

"If your own people will not have you..."

He cleared his throat and turned up the trail, not wanting to listen to another offer.  "Come with me over the next rise.  Then we can turn back."

* * *

"What does the land tell you about this place?" he asked the vastayan children as they looked down on what used to be Eritu Edo'e, the west valley.

In the earliest and fiercest of the spring rains, a party from Noxus had landed on the far side of the Spine and made their way up the valley, heading for a pass far to the south of Seons'e.  They had avoided detection at first, but eventually the Ionians realized the enemy had gone around their line.  They flanked them to the north and south, and the slaughter began.

Gili was pale.  "There is a scar here that has never healed."

"There was a wound here beyond all imagining."

The Noxians, realizing they were trapped, had unleashed a suicide weapon.  No one caught in the valley had survived.  He himself, running to the sounds of battle, had seen only the aftermath: the smoking remnants of the bridge, the twisted forms of those below.  He had heard no moans from the injured or dying, just the sound of the rain falling on their corpses.  It had been a silence more terrible than any scream.

On the ridge where the three of them now stood was a monument, made of stone and shaped like a broken tree.  One side was white, the other black.

_Half for us, half for them.  Not that Noxians would care that we mourn their dead_.

"This valley is cursed," Yasuo continued.  "Up until now, I had thought no Ionians would ever set foot here."

But there was the road, running through what had been horror.  It crossed the valley in a line and wound its way up the next ridge; orange in the sunlight, moon-colored in the shadow.

"Where does it go?" Vaska asked.

"The old road ran to the two closest Elderships.  From there it joins the main road.  Seons'e was always isolated."

_People came to us.  We never had to go them.  Not with Elder Souma's reputation_...

Gili peered at the valley floor.  "No one lives here?"

"No."

He pointed.  "Then what is that?"

The tent was ragged and so dirty it wasn't possible to tell what its original color had been.  Just as they approached it, a blonde head emerged.

_Madwoman_.  He reflexively drew his sword.

She smiled at him.

"Vaska, Gili, get behind me."  He held the edge of his blade between her and them. 

"Did you miss me, Man of Ionia?"

It was odd to switch back to simplified Ionian after using Vaska and Gili's dialect.  "Stop stalking me."

"Stop finding me."  She stretched.  "I didn't chase you this time.  You came to me."

"You have no right to be here."  She wasn't threatening him.  She wasn't even standing.  So why did he feel so shaken?  "Are you lying in wait for me?"

"This piece of land is mine."  She had that same intensity of gaze, the same fearlessness as before.  "I paid for it."

The sword trembled in his grip.  "No Noxian owns _any_ of Ionia."

"Are things so different here?  Even in Noxus, they own their own graves."

He blinked and nearly lost his momentum.  "When they lie in them, _xue_."

"I have lain in this grave for years."

"If you wanted to die, all you had to do was ask."  He showed her his blade.

She didn't blink.  "The dead don't look for death."

_Madwoman_.

"Do you know her?" Vaska whispered.

Yasuo turned away and sheathed his sword.  "She is a Noxian.  She isn't sane."

"What does she say?"

"That she is dead and this patch of land is her grave."

"Is she dangerous?" Gili asked.

"I don't know."  He looked back and saw her still lying in her tent.  "You were waiting, watching the road.  You knew I'd have to pass by."

"I came home.  That is all."  She crawled out of her tent and sat cross-legged on the grass, face serene.   

"Tell me something, then.  Who have you seen on this road?"

She laughed with a surprisingly musical sound.  "I don't owe you anything, Man of Ionia."

"Trade, then."

"What are you offering?"

"What would you like?" he asked, bracing for her answer.

She didn't even pause.  "An honest duel.  No more dodging or windy tricks.  Stand and fight me."

" _After_ you tell me what you know."

"Bond on it?"  Her eyes, which had softened, returned to piercing brightness.

He sighed, drew his sword, and placed a hand on the bare metal.  "I swear on my sword I will duel with you, blade to blade.  Now, tell me what you've seen."

"There is a carriage that comes by every few days.  It comes by night and leaves by morning."  Her tone had dropped and gone flat, as though she were reciting.  "The sides are purple and gold, and it is always drawn by two grey horses."

"Spotted horses," he said.

"Little spots, and dark manes."

He groaned.  

"What is wrong?" Vaska asked.

"They're moon horses.  Black horses turning white.  They only have the spotted look for a year or two, so they are prized."  He spoke slowly, in simple Ionian.  "Only the rich drive them.  Whoever is coming to Seons'e is wealthy."

The madwoman continued.  "They are always men.  They talk, but I can't understand them."

_What does this mean?_ He paced a few steps in each direction.  "Do you see a mark on them that looks like a star?"

"Not on the carriage, but on one of the men.  He rides on the top."

"Do they carry goods?"

She tilted her head, considering.  "No."

"When they leave?"

"No."

_They come with money, they leave without buying anything, and a star-mark man guards them?_

The Noxian woman stood and picked up her sword.  "You have your answers.  Now face me."

He walked a safe distance away from Gili and Vaska and drew his own blade.  The remaining daylight showed all the little scratches and nicks in the metal.  Every one was earned in combat; every one a blow that could have been lethal.  To lose focus in swordplay was to die.... but he barely saw the Noxian and her broken tooth of a sword.

_The star-mark men guard them.  They must profit somehow._

She was the first in.  She ran up to him, made an experimental tap on his sword, and dashed to one side.  He lunged but fell just short, a step too slow.

_Are they just bodyguards?_

She came in again, striking playfully at his forearm.  "Wake up!"

He punched backward with his pommel, knocking her sword back, and followed that up with a long sweeping slash.  She spun away from it with ease.

_Or do the Ionians buy from them directly?_

Her next hit wasn't playful.  He heard the whistle of air just in time get his blade up.  The shock rattled his teeth.

"Fight me!" she hissed.

He went after her, aiming for her blade, but he merely tapped her armored wrist.  Her return stroke nearly cut his hair.

_But what could they sell._..

Then he understood. 

Yasuo froze almost in mid-step, blinded, unable to breathe-

Her strike hit his shoulder guard, glanced across his face, and knocked him to his knees.  He dropped his sword to press both hands to his nose where the old wound had reopened.  He still couldn't see; his world had turned red.

"Fight me, you wretched Ionian!"

_"What do you want me to do for you?!"_ he yelled.

"Fight me!"

"You want to die?"  He sneezed; the pain was making his eyes squint.

"Just fight!"

He found his sword in the grass and lurched to his feet.  He knew he'd have to kill her this time.

Sudden footsteps.  Gili and Vaska.  They pushed in front of him and stood braced.  Knives in hand.  Arrow to string.

_My little warriors_.

She didn't laugh.  "Who are these?"

"My children."  He sneezed again.  "Are you disappointed, _xue?"_

"Their father won't fight.  Are _they_ disappointed?"

He laughed.  "Touch a hair on their heads and die."

Her smile promised nothing good.

He walked between them.  "Stand down," he said quietly in Old Ionian.  They looked at him in confusion but backed away.

_Goodbye, madwoman_.

Teeth showing, she dived him.  He didn't parry.  He extended his arm in a thrust; simple; direct; straight to the heart.

She got her sword in the way in time.

Surprise blended with relief.  He locked his blade with hers and shoved her back, using his weight more than his arm.  She sprang away and he stayed on her, not letting her get the room for a full swing.  The wind was rising without any conscious effort on his part; against his blade, her misshapen sword was humming, jittering, the marks in its rough surface beginning to turn bright green.  They turned in slow circles, a dance in parody.  Her eyes also grew bright; they lent a feral beauty to the rest of her face.

She caught her foot around the back of his knee and buckled it; he only lost his balance for an instant, but it was enough.  With her arms free, she brought her sword up behind her, like an axe, and-

An arrow pinged off her blade.

"Gili, I said stand down!"  He turned in anger... and saw his little vastayan warrior standing obediently, bow in his hand, arrow still on the string.  Only then did he hear the busy clip of hooves -- one-two, one-two, moon horses at the trot in perfect unison.

He didn't know how he dodged her strike.  By the time it occurred to him that she had missed, he had his back to her and was running for what little cover the valley afforded.

The purple and gold carriage was coming down the road.


	5. Chapter 5

_The carriage.  Here.  With us standing in the field like trees._

He ran to the vastayan children and dropped onto his stomach.  "Get down.  Down flat.  Quickly."

The madwoman had followed him.  He sprang from the earth, wrapped his arms around her, and brought her to the ground.

She had the temerity to giggle.

"Lie still, _xue_.  Have some respect for your life."  Not that getting into cover was likely to help, if the bandit archer had already spotted them.

Another arrow whirred over their heads.  An Ionian voice shouted, and he heard the approaching hoofbeats drop out of their steady trot.

"Do you know about horses?" he asked the children.

"We use them," Gili whispered back.

"In harness?"  When they nodded, he sighed out a long breath.  "All right.  Both of you take a knife..."

He walked out of cover a moment later, sword in hand.  A blast of wind caught and destroyed a third arrow.  He went directly to the center of the road and stood, waiting as the grey horses slowed, ears pricked, snorting as they caught his scent.  Their driver tried to urge them forward, but they planted their feet and threw their heads far back.  Moon horses were bred for sense, and they could smell the blood on his face.

 _First order of business_...

He sent a sharp gust over the top of the carriage.  Something heavy hit the ground on the other side.  He doubted it had killed the archer, but hopefully it had broken his bow, or his stock of arrows.

The voice from behind the horses was unsteady.  "Who's there?"

He answered by walking into the little circle of light cast by the driver's lantern, sword first.  He took the reins of the nearest horse in his free hand and smiled at the man.  "Hello."

 _Purple livery.  Seems young_.

"Y-Yasuo."

"Ah, have you heard of me?"  He kept smiling.  "Why are you and these very fine horses going to Seons'e?"

"Aritu, what is the matter?" called a voice from inside.  The accent was cultured.  

"If you want to live, run," he said quietly to the driver.  "Get on the road, run back where you came.  Now."

The young man was too foolish or too scared to move.  "It's him.  It's the murderer. Yasuo."

 _What a shame_.

"What?  Where are those useless vastayans?"  The carriage rocked a bit on its hinges.

"Your guard is dead.  Your man is about to be, unless you come out and face me."  Almost four feet of Ionian masterwork steel bridged the distance between his wrist and the driver's throat.

"I-I have no money," came the reply.

"Nonsense.  Besides, I'm not after your money."

"He has a sword!" squeaked the driver.

"You want another body then, murderer?!"

Yasuo kept his eye on the young man, trusting the wind to tell him if the vastayan guard moved again.  "Who is worse, the murderer or the man who does business with him?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

He flicked his wrist.  A sharp gust of wind carved a line into the face of the carriage.  "That was your second lie.  Tell one more and your man is dead."

"Why are you doing this?" the young man whimpered.

He kept his face neutral.  "I gave you a chance.  You should have run."

Creaking springs, then the sound of the door opening.  A corner of the carriage, and the horses, were between him and it.  Keeping his blade level, he circled around, letting go of the bridle as he did.

It was Sasoume.  He was a minor noble of Elder Wasuya's circle.  Yasuo wasn't particularly pleased to recognize him.

"So it is you.  Murderer."

"Are we calling each other pretty words now?  How about 'client'?  How about _ionu?"_

Even in the dusk, he saw the man go pale.

"I don't-"

"Careful.  You're on your third lie."  He tilted his blade so it caught the light.  "If not for your money, they would have no trade."

"I can spend my own money on my own recreation."  Sasoume's eyes kept going to the side.

 _Expecting backup?_ Yasuo sent a whistle of wind just past him.  It didn't hit anything, but the man flinched.  "What would your Elder say if he knew _this_ was your 'recreation'?"

"Ha!" laughed the driver.  It was an involuntary spasm, almost a cough.

 _What does that_ -

Sasoume came alive.  He leaped back into the carriage, yelping, "Drive!  Drive now!"

The driver shook the reins.  The moon horses sprang forward, the harness straps tightened...

...and broke, where they had been cut by stealthy vastayan warriors with good knives.  The moon horses ran forward at a lopsided trot, still hitched together and dragging the reins behind them.

The carriage rolled an inch or two and creaked to a halt.

"Listen to me this time," Yasuo hissed at the driver.  "Duck."

He called the wind.  A razor-edged blast tore through the carriage and took its top half off.  The lantern's light went out in a blink.  The driver cowered in the footwell.  There was a shortened scream, a splash of blood.... and that was the end of Sasoume.

 _Another Ionian corpse.  Ah well.  They can only kill me once_.

"You can come out now, my brave ones."

Gili and Vaska crawled out from under the carriage, still holding their knives.  Their eyes were dark in the dim light.  His heart swelled.  "You did very well."

"Yasu-aki, is the man in the carriage-?"

He silently made a turn-around gesture.  They did.  They both gasped but made no other sound.

 _You've put the burden of a man's death on their souls_ , Yone's voice said.

"We both know what he would have done to them."  Yasuo turned his attention to the cowering driver.  "Don't move.  Madwoman, where are you?"

"Now you want me?"  Her voice was so close to his ear that he startled.  She laughed.

"Watch this poor wretch.  If he moves, kill him.  I'm going to catch the horses."

The silver horses hadn't run far.  They'd gone off the road into the field, trying to graze while still hitched together.  As he approached, they whuffed suspiciously.  One of them stood; the other learned away, the skin under his hand shivering when he touched its glowing neck.

 _Easy, moon brother_.

He removed all but their bridles and waited, amused, as they both dropped to the ground for an unhurried roll.  When he led them back and tied one to the remains of the carriage, their silver coats were dirty and streaked with green.

"Hope you know how to ride," he said to the unfortunate driver.  "Up you go, child."

The young man probably didn't, but there was no way for him to refuse.  He climbed onto the bare grey back and sat helplessly as Yasuo led the second horse a few steps past the wreck of the carriage and pointed its nose back the way it had come.

"I spared you so you could carry a message.  Do you understand?"

The young man's eyes were wide.  "Y-yes...."

 _You can't afford pity_.  "Go directly to Elder Wasuya and tell him that Yasuo the murderer has come back to Seons'e.  Tell him to send no more Ionians in purple carriages, unless he wants me to make more corpses."

"Ah..."

"Do not stop for anything.  If you come back here, I will kill you."

A sound like a sob came from overhead.

"Do you remember the message, child?"

"Yes..."

"Then go."  He got behind the moon horse and stung its haunches with a lash of wind.  The poor beast broke into a gallop, and Yasuo -- who could keep pace with a horse for a little if he had the wind under him -- ran alongside, pushing them.  They didn't seem to notice when he dropped out; they were still going strong when they disappeared over the hills.

"No strength like the strength of fear."

 _Out of such trauma, monsters are made_.

"He was part of it.  If he wants forgiveness, let him earn it." 

_So what now?_

He walked back, stopping on the way to find the star-mark archer dead of a broken neck.  With the vastayan children's help, he stripped the carriage of anything useful.  As the _xue_ had said, there were no trade goods, but the Ionians' personal luggage had some useful things.  There was also more of the excellent wine, and the lockbox was heavy with coins.

 _Enough to buy a small farm_.

Gili and Vaska amused themselves with the money, throwing the silver pieces into the air and watching them shine in the moonlight, but Yasuo turned toward the madwoman.  "Let me show you a custom of my people."

"We haven't finished our duel," she replied.

"We will."  He pulled a handful of coins out of the lockbox.  "This money is steeped in blood and guilt.  Show me your grave, _xue_ , and we will give it back to the earth."

"Why my grave?" she asked.

"Because after a year, the earth will wash it clean.  Then you can take it."

He expected some retort, but she was silent.

"It's enough for anyone to buy a new life," he prompted.  "Even a Noxian madwoman." 

"How much are you?"

"Don't."  He turned his eyes back to Gili and Vaska.  "This money was for-"

He didn't realize the shape behind them was an archer until he heard the  _twip_ of the bowstring.

Gods!

Even as his whole body seized up, he felt emptiness in the air beside him where the madwoman had been.  He didn't know how she'd seen, how she'd managed to react, how she'd been able to move in the eyeblink between _twip_ and _thuk!_...

She got in.  Somehow.  She got in.  She outran the arrow.  She threw her body in its path as one... two.... three missiles struck home in her, not in the terrified bodies scrambling away, their belated screams rising, not in them--

and then (even in his dreamlike and slowed world her sword was a blur, the green emblems striping a broad semicircle), she pulled back, swung, struck--

With a cry that came from somewhere deeper than her lungs, she loosed an arc of raw power that cut the archer down.

....and all of that in the two heartbeats it took for him to gather himself and run to her side.

Breathing heavily, she collapsed.  Two arrows stuck out of her side and a third from her upper leg.  Her sword was inert on the grass, its borrowed magic spent.  Two bodies thudded into him, confused, scared.  Gili was crying; Vaska was blank.

"Madwoman," he said in disbelief.

* * *

He'd learned a year ago what utter numbness felt like.  Sometimes he pretended he controlled it, sought the cheap substitute that lurked at the bottom of a bottle, but most of the time it simply was, constant and faithful as the sun.  You couldn't appeal to it, couldn't reason with it.  All you could do was choose from the two options it offered you.

Lie down and die, or keep walking.

He'd walked then.  He walked now.  He pulled the arrows from the _xue's_ flesh, ignoring her screams.  He bound her wounds and pressed the Targonian crystal to her heart.  He committed the lockbox and its tainted coins to the earth.  He bundled whatever seemed worth taking into a pack and set it aside while he caught the horse and collected the vastayan children.

Vaska had taken the knives.  He was kneeling over the body of the dead archer and stabbing it with mindless, repetitive motions.  Yasuo looked on without interfering, but he felt a pang.  The little vastayan was worse off than he'd realized; he needed that crystal just to hold his mind together.

_I will give it back tomorrow, before-_

He sighed.

_At any rate, we can't stay here._

The moon horse carried three as he led it through the deepening night.  It flicked its ears constantly and tried to sidle out from underneath its burden.  He had to keep shaking the reins to hold its attention.

 _One foot in front of the other, horse.  Walk.  Just walk_.

* * *

When he woke up, he had no memory of making camp.  But he knew he hadn't bedded down with two vastayan children trying to huddle in his arms, and-

Something was _breathing_ on his face. 

He opened his eyes to find the _xue_ right up against him, forehead to forehead, almost nose to nose.  She wasn't touching him anywhere else; the sleeping forms of Gili and Vaska rested in the triangle between her body and his.

_How did she get so close?_

He meant to pull away.  It would be the appropriate response.  He had told her, again and again, that he wasn't interested.  He had scarred her flesh.  He had tried everything in his power to make her see Yasuo the murder, the unrepentant killer, the sword without a sheath. He had done his best to make her afraid of him.

He had failed.  Just as he was failing now.

 _Well... no one has to know_.

He reached out and put his arm over her.  When she didn't move, he spread his fingers on her back and drew her closer.

 _This is unwise_.

It was a lot of things, but it was also comfortable.  It was irrationally peaceful.  It felt safe.

_You are a fool._

Couldn't a fool enjoy the moment?

_It's not anything special._

Who said it was?

_You're just tired of being alone._

Loneliness had never stopped him before.  His plans were still the same.

_You don't want to say goodbye._

No.  But I will.

_Why don't you-?_

He silenced the voice by closing his eyes.

A few hours later, it was full daylight.  He had to get up at this point.  When he returned, he went through their plunder and divided it into two packs, leaving enough food out for their breakfast. Before he had finished, he felt eyes on him.

"Why?"

She was sitting up next to the sleeping vastaya.  Her bloodstained shirt was hanging open, but there was no blood on the bandages, and she didn't seem to be in pain.

"Why what, madwoman?"  He passed her the wineskin, hoping it wasn't to her taste so he could justify keeping it all.

"Why did you save me?"

"You saved their lives.  It would have been dishonorable of me to leave you to die."  

She took a slug of wine, wiped her mouth indelicately, and drank more.  "Is that all?"

"And we didn't finish our duel."

Her green eyes burned into his.  "Is that all?"

"Isn't that enough?"  He took the skin back and handed her some cheese.  "You practically begged to cross swords with me.  You made me swear on it."

She snorted.

"You don't know Ionian customs.  An oath is a debt.  I have to make good on it."

"Hm."  She chewed slowly on a bite of cheese.

"Ionians are serious about debt obligations."

"So that was it, then.  An obligation."

He groaned.  " _Xue_ , stop trying to get me to say what you want to hear."

She leaned over, so close to him he could smell the wine on her breath.  "Obligation and gratitude were your only reasons?"

"It's all I can tell you."

Abruptly, she laughed.  "All right.  So how long can I be your 'debt obligation'?"

"Until this afternoon, when we part ways."

"If you leave, I will-"

He sighed, explosively.  "Don't you understand?  I'm a condemned man.  I have no future.  Stop trying to share what I don't have."

"I'm a corpse.  That hasn't stopped me."

"If you're dead, stop drinking all of my wine.  And if you're not, eat something."  He cut a piece of fruit in two and offered half to her.  "What do you want from me, madwoman?"

Her fingernails dug into his hand when she took it.  "You.  All of you."

"Hardly.  You want my heart, or my liver, or maybe just my _iktil_."

"Crazy man.  If I wanted your liver, I could take it."

"Ha."

"You laugh, Man of Ionia?"

"You demand.  You order.  You threaten.  Never once do you ask."

Her eyes didn't flicker.  "When you see a drowning man, do you ask permission before you grab him by the collar?"

 _This again_.  "What makes you think I need you?"

"I can see it in you.  You need a mate."  Her hand sought his, but he made a fist.  "I need you."

"If all you wanted was a tumble, I might have given you that.  If you'd asked."

"Give it now.  They are still asleep."

He laughed.  "This is your idea of seduction, madwoman?"

"You have a hungry look when you look at me."

'What if I'm just hungry?"

"Be serious.  I will be.  I'll even ask you."  She came perilously close to him.  "Please, as you put it, tumble me."

He laughed again.  "No."

"Then please let me tumble you."

He let the silence stretch.

"I said please."

"I appreciate that.  But no.  Not now."

"Why not?"

_Because it might mean something._

"Do you want to matter to me?" he asked instead, standing up.

To her credit, she didn't answer immediately.  "I want the place by your side."

"That belongs to my sword."

"You have two sides."

 _Has there ever been a woman like this?_   "I'll give you a chance to earn it.  Go get your sword."

There was a world where nothing mattered but the wind and the sword.  It was a mental place where mercy and compassion couldn't exist.  He had gone there to kill Yone.  He went there now.

When their blades crossed again, he met her as an enemy and a target.  He went for her, and every strike was a killing strike.  He battered down her resistance.  He went around her parries.  He crowded her as he had before and made her larger sword meaningless, but she couldn't go on the offensive with him less than an inch away from cutting out something vital.

Her eyes showed something like fear for the first time.  He ignored it.  He drove at the places the vastayan archer had pierced with his arrows, trying to make her flinch.  He slashed at her eyes.  He used the wind to throw her off balance and then he went for her throat.  But every time his blade would have pierced her neck or laid her stomach open, her sword was there, the runes on its surface glowing brighter and brighter.  Her arms trembled, her breath came fast, but he couldn't get through.

At last, when he was nearly out of breath, he skipped away two steps.  "Stop me, _xue_."

She blinked.

Desperation put an edge on his voice.  "Are you deaf?  _Stop me_."

When he called the wind again, he wasn't looking at her.

 _"Murderer!"_ she shrieked, but he was already airborne.

Into the air.  Through the air.  It was easy, simple, comfortable to know nothing but the grip in his hand and the target below.  He could feel the swing, the hit.  He knew exactly how much resistance he would meet.  He was ready to turn his face from the blinding spray of blood that would rise

\-- when he cut Vaska and Gili's throats --

No love slowed his arm when he swept the blade forward.  They were just two more targets, and they would be just two more cor-

Something hit him.  Blind, from the back -- it was a white shock of impact, then a red shock of pain.  He flew right over them, momentum rolling him a good ten feet beyond that, and behind him, where he'd left it, he heard his own cry of surprise.  His sword disappeared somewhere along the way; another hit knocked the breath from his lungs.

Green fury in her eyes, the _iothira_ that was the Noxian madwoman straddled him.

 _This is not how I expected to die_.

"I win.  You bastard."

He wheezed.  He lay with his mouth open, trying to make his lungs work.

She slapped him.  "What was that?  _What was that?"_

"A test."  His voice creaked out of his throat.

"A test?!"

"You passed."

For an instant he thought she might kill him then and there.  "You made me think you were-"

"I had.... I had to know..."

"Idiot!"  She slapped him again.

"Ow."

"You deserve it.  You deserve worse."  

He tried to pull free but couldn't.  "Don't expect an apology, madwoman."

"Explain, at least."

"My teacher..."  He inhaled and coughed.  "My teacher used to do this."

"You've seen this before?"

"He said it was the truest test of heart."

He didn't expect the little smile that crossed her face.  "So you wanted to know my heart?"

"Yes.  Also, you got that tumble you wanted."

She stared.  Then she started to laugh.  He joined in briefly, but she was still going after he'd dropped out again.  She laughed until she was bent over and gasping for breath, and her hair had fallen forward over her face.

He couldn't have said what impulse made him reach for a lock of it.  "You're not dead, _xue_.  The dead don't laugh."

"Does that matter to you?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

She touched his hand.  "Is this your idea of courtship, Man of Ionia?"

His mouth twisted.  "Let me up, madwoman.  We have work to do."

She didn't move.  "Why do you want a Noxian to live?"

"I don't want a 'Noxian'.  I..."  He sighed.  "Words aren't my gift.  But... calling you 'dead' is like calling the sun dark.  And hearing you want to be dead is like hearing you want to blot out the sun."

"But you don't want me?"

"Even if I did, _xue_ , I couldn't tell you."  He reached up and touched her back.  All her muscles were tense.  "But I do trust you."

"Prove it."

 _Gladly_.  "I want you to go with Gili and Vaska to vastaya.  They have a message to carry."

"You're sending me away?"

"With my _children_.  And with the one pure-hearted thing I may ever do."

She went silent.  Then she bent low and touched noses with him again.  It felt more intimate than a kiss.  "Do you want to know what the Mother Bird said to me, Man of Ionia?"

"What?"

"She said your cage is locked from the inside."  She paused for a reply that didn't come.  "Was she wrong?"

"No."

"What will it take?"

He sighed.  "I have to keep an oath.  After that..."

_After that is nothing.  Nothing at all._

"You're going pale."

He let go of her and shoved himself into a sitting position.  "How are you called, madwoman?"

"Broken," she answered in Old Ionian.

"What?"

She repeated herself.  It still took him a moment to hear Riven instead of _ribenu_.  "Why do you ask?"

"My name is Yasuo.  It means 'peacemaker'.  But all I have done my whole life is cause fights."  An ironic laugh bubbled out of his throat.  "Now I'm about to start a war."

"Is the message so bad?"

"The future is full of blood, _xue_.  The ones who stay in their graves may be the wisest ones of all."

* * *

At the entrance to the vastayan trade road, he stood back and tried to fix the image in his mind.  Two vastayan children -- feather-headed, claw-footed -- sat on the back of an Ionian moon horse, while a Noxian madwoman held the reins.  There was a pack in front of Gili and a larger pack on her back.

"I won't tell you where to go.  But go to as many towns as possible.  If anyone seems to be trying to hold you, run."  He spoke mostly to Gili.  "Do not let them flatter or intimidate you.  You are a warrior, and you must deliver your message.  If you get separated, go on alone."

Then he came close and spoke to Vaska.  "You have a long and hard road to walk.  When this is over, promise me you will find a healer among your own people."  He touched the gem hanging from its chain.  "This is yours for as long as you need it.  And I- I'm sorry I didn't get there sooner."

"Yasu-aki," was all the boy said.  It was clear he was inches from bursting into tears.

" _Xue_ \-- Riven -- this is for you." 

He crossed his blade with her own jagged, broken one and called the wind.  The runes in its surface came to life.  He felt the energy draining from his body, but he didn't stop until they glowed nearly white.

"I don't know how long it will stay in the blade.  But I want you to have it if you need it."

Her face showed no expression.  "And your message, Yasuo?"

"Right."  He took a deep breath and spoke the words he had been mentally rehearsing all morning.  "You must tell the vastayan elders that a band of star-mark men has taken the Ionian town of Seons'e.  They are capturing young vastayans, including _mataya-ki_ , and forcing them into prostitution.  When the children are used up, the star-mark men kill them and leave their bodies in the marsh."

"How...?"  Gili trailed off and tried again.  "How can they sell...?"

"Because there are men who will buy them.  Ionian men.  The men who come in purple carriages, with silver horses just like this one.  The whole town is thriving on the sale of young vastayans to Ionians."  He took a slow breath.  "When you tell your people, they will come with arms, and there will be war between your people and mine.  But that is what must be."

"And you?"

"I have another obligation."

"Will we ever see you again?"

That question --in Vaska's unsteady voice -- opened the floodgates.  He suddenly found himself with two sobbing children clinging to him.  The madwoman simply watched, with a flat look in her eyes that did a great deal to anchor him to sanity.

"Come back with an army," he finally replied.  "Then we'll see."

"Do I get no farewell?" she asked.

"If I thought this was goodbye," he answered.  "But I know you'll turn up again."

She kissed him.  It was so fleeting that he wasn't certain he even felt it.  "Live, Yasuo."

"Live, Riven."

"I make no promises."

He laughed.  "Nor do I."

He watched them until they disappeared.  Then he stepped back into the cold weight of loneliness -- like armor, like a cage -- and turned his face to Seons'e.


	6. Chapter 6

It was odd to be home.

Seons'e hadn't changed much since he'd left, though there were a lot more vacant houses than there used to be.  The quarter of town with the breached wall was nearly full, which surprised him until he realized they probably enjoyed the convenience of a quick exit from the city.  Yet again, he was reminded that this was a civilian town, a place where the residents never expected an attack.

He walked the place from end to end before sunset.  In his day, there had been a main gate in the west wall, two smaller gates to the north and south, and a door on the east that could only be passed on foot.  Someone, probably the star-mark men, had made a larger exit to the east for better access to the vastayan trade road.  It had no gates at all, nor was there anything guarding the small door -- and of course the southwest wall had a significant hole in it.

 _The town is indefensible.  This is insane_.

Security was better around the old school complex, anyway.  The wall around it was entirely solid, and there were figures in the guard towers.  Still, there had been a little foot-gate that the students had used, and he was certain it was still there.  These were people to make doors, not close them up.

He drifted toward the market square.  On the way, he passed through a neighborhood of small houses on the southeast quarter.  Doors and windows stood open; dust covered their floors.  Most of the roofs were sagging, though there were some that showed evidence of repair.  The people who had resettled the town had taken the largest houses first, so these were still vacant.

One door still had a ghost of its original green paint.  He went inside.

Past the kitchen with its cold hearth; past the chamber that had been a combination of a front room and their mother's bedroom; into the room he and Yone had shared until they joined the sword school.  The place had a lifelessness that went beyond the cracked wall and the hole in the ceiling.

"Every hatching breaks the egg," Elder Souma used to say to youngsters who got homesick.  Yasuo had never felt that way; home was wherever Yone was.  But now, looking over the shards of his infant life, he felt a twinge.

The bamboo tube was in the corner of the front room, overlooked by everyone who had been over this house.  He took a quick peek to make sure of its contents, then put it in his bag and left.

* * *

The new Seons'e was a glorious bustle at the prime market hour of sunset.  If not for the star-mark men leaning on every wall, it would be the Ionian dream; humans and vastaya mingling as neighbors.  There were no beggars, but there were enough buskers and street performers out that he felt safe to sit near the well and play his flute, a few coins in a sack in front of him.

He had changed his appearance, of course.  His hair was down and tucked under the goathair cape, and he'd removed or covered most of his armor with a motley of clothing taken from the bandits and the idiot Sasoume.  The first hour in town, he'd kept an eye out for any sign that his outfit was raising suspicion, but it seemed that ex-Ionian refugees were the rule, not the exception.

Before the last glow of sunlight faded from the walls, he realized he had attracted a pair of children.  They taught him a couple of vastayan folksongs -- dances, actually -- and skipped around with glee while he played.  That was fun.  He was a little concerned when a few more of their friends joined in, but the star-mark men didn't seem interested since it only involved children.

When darkness was setting in, he was invited by one of the fathers to stay with them.  That had been enjoyable too.  His cover story as an Ionian with a checkered past looking for a new life -- besides not being too far off the truth -- was the perfect excuse to get information about the town.

Seons'e, or Sanshe as the residents called it, was the first success of the vastayan campaign to take back their lands.  The star-mark men were called _astenai_ and were not regarded as bandits but honorable and proud members of the resistance movement.  They periodically went on recruiting drives to vastayan lands to bring back new settlers.  Ionians were welcome to live there, but they were not permitted to enter the school complex or join the resistance.  There was, however, no prohibition against intermarriage; in the household where he'd found hospitality for the night, the grandparents were a mixed marriage, and one daughter near adulthood had her eye on an Ionian woodcutter with the evident approval of her parents.

He ventured a question about the Ionians in purple carriages and learned that the regular citizens were unaware of the 'recreation' they conducted; the general opinion was that there were negotiations going on with Ionian towns.  It was hard work to keep his mouth shut and his face neutral at that.  To his relief, one of the children volunteered the local rumor that the grey moon horses were actually living statues, and that opened the door to a conversation about local folktales.  One in particular intrigued him -- the tale of the Black Mother, the _danaba trisu_ \-- who wandered the streets at night looking after lost children.  By day she took the form of a black carrion bird, so it was forbidden to kill or interfere with them lest they accidentally do her harm.

Xue, _I find you even here_...

At bedtime, the father of the group showed him a room.  It was clear from his posture and his look that he wanted to say something in private.  "Stranger, you are not what you say you are," he began.

"Is anyone, honored father?"

"You speak like a priest of vastaya.  Are you a holy man?"

"It is simply the form of your language I was taught."  He tried not to move, but he was aware that his well-bundled sword might be hard to get out of his wrappings if he needed it.

The man must have sensed his unease.  "Peace.  I will not do violence to a man under my roof.  But you are a poor guest if you mean to do us harm."  He cleared his throat.  "If you know more than you are saying, speak."

He thought about the dancing children in the market.  "Honored father, have you not noticed that the city is not built to be defended?"

Something flashed across the man's eyes.  "You foresee a war?"

He shook his head.  "I foresee nothing.  I am no prophet."

"Ah.  You simply noticed a lack of security."

The way the man's posture relaxed nearly made him groan.  "No, honored father.  The city is in danger.  Messengers have already run to the east and the west, and in a few days they will return.  They will bring armies from Ionia and vastaya.  If they fight over Sanshe..."

"You foresee the city destroyed?"

"There is no way it will not."

The father bowed his head in great respect.  "Honorable prophet, no one likes bad news, but I will try to accept your words with wisdom."

 _If they destroy the city, the blame will rest on me.  As it should_.  "Please do your best to warn your neighbors.  I will be gone from your house by sunrise."

Yasuo did better than that; he left in the grey light of dawn.  He crept to the swamp while the stench was still mild and dispatched one of the dozing _xue_.  He collected its long flight feathers and went back into town.

Superstition, paranoia, blame -- those were weapons too, and he was going to need them.  One man against a whole compound was a losing fight unless he did something to improve his odds.  He didn't expect the Ionians or the vastayans for another day at least, so that gave him time for a game he thought dishonorable but amusing.

Sabotage.

The school complex hadn't changed much since he'd been a student -- a bored Ionian bastard child who wanted to do anything but study.  The servant stairs once trod by his teenage feet were now covered in an undisturbed carpet of dust, and once he'd made camp in the attic, he had the perfect base from which to launch his campaign.

He started small.  Little disturbances, petty vandalism.  He sent gusts of wind into rooms to rearrange the contents.  He got into the armory and warehouse and left behind armor that looked like it had been chewed, blades snapped inside their scabbards; bowstrings cut, arrows broken.  He found a stash of nails and scattered them everywhere; in beds, parade grounds, and (despite his regret) the stables.  It wasn't worth mentioning what he did to their food stores -- what he didn't take for himself, that is.  And wherever his path of destruction led, he left one of the black feathers.

By evening, the compound was on edge.  He lay with his cheek to the floor, listening to the angry vastayan voices below and trying not to make any noise.  But it was difficult: the combination of indulging his spirit of mischief and the thrill of repeated scrapes with danger had left him giddy.  He tried to sleep, but he was effervescent; his very skin seemed to tingle.

So he decided that none of them should sleep either.

In the pre-dawn hours, he stole the kitchen firestarting kit and set a handful of small fires.  When the _astenai_ fled their barracks to deal with those, he went into their rooms and took whatever looked most valuable.  Slowly, over the course of the second day, he made sure the items turned up in someone else's possession.  He perfumed the air in their dining hall with the stench of burnt feathers, making their scant meal that much less pleasant.  He left the taps open in the bathing room.  He spent half an hour opening and closing the same window, making an unfortunate sentry wonder if he were losing his mind.

The only places he didn't disturb were the Elder's suite (which the commander of this group must have made his quarters) and the long building that he suspected housed the captive children.

Late afternoon, the star-mark leader finally made an appearance.  He assembled everyone in the parade grounds, and Yasuo watched from a broken attic window as he went around the ranks.

 _Not counting sentries, that's... about forty men_.  They were all built large; like the _bosin_ -man he'd had the misfortune to encounter, these members of the vastayan resistance were modeled on heavy animals.  By contrast, the commander was much smaller, but he clearly had a presence far greater than his physicality.

He stalked around, speaking in sharp barks.  Yasuo couldn't understand him, but his tone was clear; he either blamed the men for not catching the vandal or he suspected some of them were involved.  The men stood stoic, lining three sides of a rectangle and not reacting, no doubt suspecting that the first to move would be singled out.

 _Well.  Let's stir the pot_.

He waited until the leader's back was turned, then flicked a sharp breeze through the window.  It striped the dirt not far from the man's shoe.  He whipped around instantly to glare at the line behind him, who all shifted and backed up.  The rising shouts surely meant "It wasn't me, it wasn't me!"

Disciplined as this group was, they might have stopped to find out what had actually happened if the last two days hadn't been full of nasty surprises.  They needed to take out their anger on someone; the tension demanded a sacrifice.  An unfortunate man with long ears that draped over his shoulders was shoved out of line by his neighbors.  New recruit?  Resident malingerer?  Whatever he was, he stood cringing before the leader, who made a show of taking his shirt off without even looking at the man.  Bared, his torso had a striking tattoo on it, in four points like a compass rose, and there were shiny pieces or jewels embedded in the skin.

The next instant, Yasuo felt the man's sexual aura.  It was almost as overwhelming as that of the _bosin_ -man, even at this distance, and his vision blurred for a second.  Long-Ears had no chance.  He fell to his knees, then down on all fours.  The leader put two hands to the front of his trousers...

He didn't watch what immediately followed.  Instead, he watched the uneasy circle of _astenai_ surrounding them.  Their shoulders were twisting; their feet dragged in the dirt.  Were they uncomfortable with what was happening, or were they also fighting the draw of their leader's _iktil_?

It was over eventually.  Yasuo, watching, wondered if the moment of humiliation would be enough.  To his surprise, the leader dragged the two neighbors out of the line -- the ones who had offered up Long-Ears -- and motioned everyone else back.

When he drew his sword, the dust began to swirl around his feet.  

 _There!  Him.  At last_.

The doomed men raised their hands in protest.  Their cries were cut off mid-syllable by a wind that spattered red against Yasuo's window.

Yasuo sat and stared.  His hands were clenched in his lap; his throat was tight with the effort it took to hold back a laugh.

It was just as he'd known.  The assassination to take the school, to vacate the town.  The bandits who had known him and spoken the name for what he was. 

 _Vetanyi_.  Windblade.

Now it had all come together in the person of the bandit leader.  A man... just a man.  Just the same fragile flesh and bone as everyone else.  The very thought made him tremble.

He pulled himself away from the blood-stained window.  Whatever would follow was of no interest to him.  He had to try to rest, to think, to plan.  But his hands shook; his palms were damp.  After so many weary, weary miles, he had seen the end of the road -- and tonight he would reach it.

 _Tonight, Yone.  I will keep my promise_.

* * *

At dusk, something beautiful appeared on the sea.  Glimmering lights winked in and out around the wrecks of the Noxian ships; clever vastayan boats threading the gaps where even the seabirds didn't go.

 _You're late_.

"These are not yours?"

"No."  The vastayan elder was one of the most physically impressive men he had ever met.  He was curly-horned and wiry, but his somewhat goaty face was the crag from which the waterfall of his beard plunged.  It nearly reached the floor, and the hair of his head was almost as long.  "They are with Xayah-otsa and her rebellion."

He tried not to sigh.  He didn't want a third party involved with this, but it probably couldn't be helped.  Two days of constant harassment would make anyone call in reinforcements.  "She moves quickly."

"And I see the fires of your people, Yasu-aki."

On the far side of the valley, camped high on the foothills, the tents of a small army glowed in the twilight.  "All for me.  I should be flattered."

"If they try to take you..." piped a familiar voice by his elbow.

"Peace, Gili.  The vastaya are not my personal guard."

"Can we be?"

Vaska's voice made him smile.  "Little warrior, tonight you are a scout and a knife-in-the-sleeve."

Their errand had been more successful than he dared to hope.  Three towns had committed their best fighters to come to Seons'e, free the children, and probably break up the resistance band.  But he doubted any of them had foreseen the arrival of the warband leader Xayah.  He'd never met her, or even seen her in person, but she had one of those curious dual reputations.  To her sympathizers, a hero and true vastayan.  To her detractors, a terrorist.

He turned to the vastayan elder.  "Honored sir, it would be best if we move before midnight.  If your people are ready, this can be over in an hour."

He didn't expect the piercing look the man gave him.  "Come away with me for a moment, would you?"

Curious, he followed him into the command tent.  They'd already spent hours inside, ever since he went to meet them at the trade road.  The map of the compound and surrounding city stood on a sand table in the center.  The leaders of the other two towns had been inside for those meetings, but for the moment he and the long-haired elder had it to themselves.

"This is a new thing," he began.

"I can imagine, sir."

"Never have we been led into battle by a Child of the Maker."

He held his peace.  

The elder frowned.  "Do you not consider yourself so?"

"Never.  I am Ionian."

"Then why do you take such an interest in a vastayan affair?"

 _It isn't a vastayan affair.  The shame of my nation must be exposed_.  But when he actually opened his mouth, what came out was, "For my children."

He expected a flurry of follow-up questions after that, but all the elder did was give him another measuring look.  "The _mataya-ki_ have always been honored."

"Truly.  They carry the future of your people."

"Then why do you call them 'my children'?"

"I hold them in trust.  That is all."  He drew his blade and held it out before the elder on his palms.  "No  _mataya-ke_  ever owned a sword like this.  So tonight at least I must be Ionian."

The man looked at his own reflection in the metal.  "And after tonight?"

"There is nothing after tonight."

"And your children?"

"As you say, the _mataya-ki_ are honored."  He kept his face neutral.

"Cease this foolishness."

He paused in the middle of sheathing his sword.  "Ah?"

"Stop your willful misunderstanding.  I am offering you a place in my tribe.  A mate of your choosing."

 _A future_...  His sword rattled against the scabbard as he finally slid it home.  It took an effort to keep his voice level.  "Do not infect my resolve with hope, good elder."

The man's chuckle came from somewhere in his chest.  "Your resolve to what, my child?"

 _Benebi-kin_.  It sounded so much more intimate in vastayan.  "To keep my promise to my brother, and pay my debt to Ionia."

"A payment in blood?"  The light-brown eyes held his.  "Is it worth it to leave two children fatherless?" 

 _And a madwoman widowed_.  "That was never my intent.  I never wanted attachments."

"You wanted no one to mourn you?"

He nodded.

"But nonetheless, they are your children."

The old, sharp pain in his throat had returned.  "Yes."

He looked down at the sand table.  He didn't hear the elder move, but suddenly a lock of white hair spilled into his field of vision.

"Vastaya know a hundred ways to pay a debt.  Do Ionians truly know only one?  When a man runs up too high a tab at a public house, do your people kill him?  We would merely have him sweep the floor and wash the dishes."

"Forgive me, honored father, but I cannot listen to such words."

There was another one of those deep chuckles.  "Of course not.  But you do understand."

He moved away on his silent, hooved feet.  Yasuo stayed where he was, feeling that only the fragile membrane of his skin was holding him together.

"All right, _mataya-ke_.  Gather your resolve and say your goodbyes.  The tribes of vastaya are with you."

"I will honor vastaya by freeing your children, good elder.  You cannot ask more of me.  I have an obligation that cannot wait."

The elder's face was all serenity.  "Of course, my child.  May it bring you the peace you crave."

_Should I have taken his offer, Yone?  Will you laugh at me, when we meet at the end of the road?_

He bowed low, and then -- on an impulse -- pressed the back of the elder's hand to his lips.  In Ionia it was the uttermost gesture of respect from a young man to an older man.  Among the vastaya.... who knows?

_It's all right.  Laugh.  So long as I can hear your voice again._


	7. Chapter 7

He sat in a tower above the west gate, waiting, waiting.  Beside him was a stench of blood and musky feathers.  The madwoman.

" _Danaba trisu tesa.  Ha'ana eni-ki worula_ ," she chanted under her breath.

"That's it."

_I am the Black Mother.  I have come for my children._

Her Noxian accent made the words harsher, lent more of an edge to the consonants.  "Try to sound angry."

She made a sound he chose to interpret as a laugh.

"When the moon is behind those hills, we move."  He heard a tremor in his own voice.  "Get ready."

"It's not too late.  You don't have to go to them."

He didn't take his eyes off the horizon.  "Debt and obligation say I do."

"Foolishness and waste."

"We've danced this dance already.  You're holding a sword by the blade.  Let go or be cut."

She leaned in.  The half-dozen _xue_ wings pinned to her cloak rustled.  "Let's find the children and run.  Just run."

"No."

"They're going to execute you."

"They always were."

"Mad _man_."

He caught her hand as she tried to slap him.  "Don't deny me this.  I won't turn back now."

"You're a fool and a coward."  Her hand became a fist in his.

"Perhaps."  He stood.  "Enjoy being right."

"Wait."  Her pupils were thin gold circles.  "The moon... the moon's still..."

"No.  No more waiting."  He vaulted onto the roof, landing silently on the balls of his feet.  When he looked up, she was staring at him from the window as if she could hold him with her eyes alone.

_Was there ever a woman like you, madwoman?_

"Goodbye, Riven."

"Yasuo.... _please_ -"

He didn't hear the rest of it.  He dropped down and disappeared into the alleyways of sleeping Seons'e, picking his way to the dark entrance to the school grounds.

Not long after, the wailing call of the Black Mother came from the west gate.  She cried vastayan words with a Noxian accent, but what caught the ear was the pain, the anger, the raw grief as she called for her children.

He had already gone inward; into the place where love and tenderness couldn't follow, where only a killer could go.

_The wind and the sword..._

Into the place where he didn't have to acknowledge that the grief in her voice was for him.

* * *

Yasuo crept from hallway to hallway and room to room, constantly dodging _astenai_ as they ran for the main exit.  He hadn't expected so many of them to respond to the provocation, nor so quickly; their nerves must still have been on edge from the last few days.  He didn't see Long Ears.

The shouts turned ugly when they found the state of their armory.  As he made his way up the old, haunted halls toward the leader's quarters, he wore a thin smile.

Right now, if all was going well, the citizens of Seons'e were hiding in their homes, peering from the windows as the Black Mother stormed the streets.  The star-mark men would go to meet her, prepared as well as they could with broken weapons and ragged armor.  Somewhere along the way, probably the market square, the volunteer army was waiting to ambush them.  The elder had said they would try to avoid spilling vastayan blood.

 _Plans seldom survive the first engagement_.

The hall outside what used to be Souma's quarters was well lit and offered no cover.  He pressed up against the wall next to the doorway and listened.  Voices; there were people inside.  One he thought was the leader and maybe a lieutenant.  They talked but didn't shout; their voices revealed no fear.  As he'd suspected, the leader of the _astenai_ was calmly leaving things to others, not rushing out to deal with the commotion pers-

The sound of the doors opening interrupted his musings.  They opened inward, so he couldn't even hide behind them; all he could do was duck down and hope whoever came out didn't turn around.

Two men -- tall, broad-shouldered (as they all were) -- walked down the hall.  One of them had a shaggy pelt of dark brown fur and the other had the horns of a stag...

That was all he had time to notice before everything happened.

They turned.  They saw him.  One shouted; he lurched forward from a crouch, trying to get room to draw his sword.  He was in too close to swing; he had to make do with bashing the furry man in the side of his head with the pommel.  The man's skull knocked against the wall, and then all of him dropped with shocking suddenness.  His feet hit Yasuo's calves, nearly tripping him as he turned and ran after the stag.

But as before, the man outran him.  The sight of his cleft foot vanishing into Souma's quarters drove all caution from his mind; he darted after, broke the plane of the doorframe like a diving bird, his arm already back, the wind keening on the edge of his bl-

He didn't even see what hit him.  All he knew was the room going sideways in a split-second blur, then his back slamming into something hard enough to rattle all his bones.  Then he was on the floor, gasping, his thoughts scattered like a handful of beads.

_I hit... the wall...?_

Hands grabbed him before he could even begin to recover and threw him facedown on the floor.  There was a knee on his back and a weight on his forearm, sharp and in two points; the stag man's hoof.  Someone reached over him and tried to yank the blade from his grasp, but even in his daze, Yasuo's fingers were locked tight.

"Ha!  An assassin."  He couldn't see the speaker.

"Maybe."  A hand grabbed his loose hair and pulled his head back.  The stag man's blurry face peered at him.  "Thought so."

"You know him?"

"Yes."  The hand was still gripping his hair.  "It's the  _jer-am_  from the forest.  The windblade."

" _Vetanyi jer-am_ ," snorted the first voice.  Then they both laughed.

The leader stooped down.  "Are you the one who's been causing trouble?" he asked in the tones reserved for a young child.

Yasuo had the presence of mind not to answer.

"He won't understand you.  Look at him."  The stag man let go of his hair, and his head dropped forward.

"Where's Nib?"

"Hallway.  The bitch-boy got him."

"Dead?"

"Nah, boss."

"Get him, then.  We need to get them back in."

After the stag man let him go, Yasuo gathered himself into a sitting position.  He didn't think he could get up.  The leader came close and touched his face; he fought the urge to flinch and tried -- though his eyes didn't quite focus -- to hold his gaze.

_Here you are.  The man who murdered my master._

He was smaller than his _astenai_ ; it was harder to tell what animal had been the basis for him.  He had a wide, smooth forehead with brows that swept directly to his hairline and eyes like an Ionian's, higher at the outside corners.  The pupils were vividly yellow.  Wolf, or maybe _iothira_.  They were a predator's eyes.  He gave off a scent; something indefinable but appealing, 'warm' and spicy.  It drew him, but he knew it was only a matter of time...

"You've been very naughty," the man said.

Again, he didn't answer.  The white Demacian stone was in his pocket, and the True Ice still burned on his chest.  He'd set his resolve for this moment, and it would have to be enough.

Several men returned, and for the next few minutes they ignored him; the leader was hearing reports and sending the men back out.  But he couldn't exploit their inattention; his head was pounding and the room was slowly spinning around him.  He hoped Gili and Vaska had escaped with the prisoners.  He hoped they hadn't noticed he was gone.  He hoped they wouldn't try to rescue him.

Finally, the leader and the stag returned to the chamber.  The doors closed behind them with authority.

 _At last_.

"Here's what I think, Edai.  I want to know how he got in.  I want to know what he knows about us.  And I want him for the stable."

"He's too dangerous, boss.  And no one wants a man."

"They'll want him, once I get him properly tamed."

_You are not adding me to your 'stable,' and I hope your other horses have already flown._

He made an effort and pulled himself to his feet.  He knew immediately that his balance wasn't right.  But he still had his blade in hand, and even though there were two of them, he was certain he and the wind were a match for both...

"See?"  The stag immediately seized his right arm.  "I'll get his sword."

"You'll do no such thing."  The smaller man was already taking off his armor.  "Let him keep it.  It won't matter."

"He's here to kill you, boss."  The stag didn't let go.

"You ever see me tame a bitch-boy?  They don't fight for long."  He loosened his shirt and shrugged it off; it dropped around his feet, and he kicked it at Yasuo.  It struck him in the face; the scent was much stronger, more direct.  He felt the heat of his rising blush.

_Remember yourself.  Remember Souma._

This close, the tattoo over the man's chest was striking.  It was a circle with four points, in vivid colors that sparkled even in this light.  The center was a gem, a rounded, dark-red crystal, and the four points were also stones.  The central stone gleamed irregularly, like water at the boil.

"Ionian windblade, do you want to kill me?" the leader asked in the trade-language pidgin.

"Yes."

He was smiling.  "Why?"

"You killed my master.  I was blamed for it."

"Revenge!"  He clapped his hands.  "Lovely."

 _Remember_...

The ice-water shock of returning to find Souma murdered and every sword pointed at him.

 _This is why I fled.  This is why I raised my sword to Yone.  For this.  For this moment_.

Yasuo pulled his arm out of the stag's grasp.  "Surrender.  I will give you one chance."

"Oh?  What if I say no?  You'll poke me with your little needle?"  The leader reached up fearlessly -- like the _bosin_ man had -- and pulled on his hair.  "I can put you on your knees, bitch-boy, with or without your sword."

He didn't have to wonder when the man would turn his dominance loose.  He felt it immediately; it was a softer hit than the one which had sent him into the wall, but it was still a hit.  He groaned despite his best efforts; his face burned hot and sweat sprang up at his hairline.

_Remember..._

The horror when his blade pierced his brother's beating heart.  The stain when he drew it out, red as the rising sun, telling him that he'd done something for which there is no forgiveness.

His sword trembled in his hand.

_Remember..._

The great mother bird of the Freljord admonishing him like a child.

He felt his eyes water and spill over, but his knees would not give.  Not when the leader pressed up against him; not even when he wound his scented shirt around his nose.

_Remember..._

Vaska spread-eagled on the forest floor; plundered; despoiled by these men, by the stag man standing right next to him.

Slowly, coldly, the anger rose.

_Tame me.  Tame me?_

The thought -- the _thought_ \-- of this smirking man 'taming' Gili and Vaska...

_Yes.  I remember._

"Come here like a good boy."  As he had done to break Long Ears, the man backed off and opened his trousers.  His erect _iktil_ \-- his cock -- stood pale and proud, and again Yasuo felt the bludgeon of desire.  He could barely see it, but he knew where it was and how it would feel against his tongue, and his traitorous mouth fell open in anticipation.

 _I remember being hunted like a criminal.  I remember life with no home and no friends_.

Sweat ran down his face and pooled in the hollow of his throat; his knees trembled; his mouth had to constantly swallow so he wouldn't drool openly.  But it was just the melting of the snow; beneath it all, his resolve stood hard and cold.  He still had it in him to call the wind.  He could still see, as if already done, the simple, direct heart-thrust he would use to end this.

End this.

 _Gods, yes, end it now_.

His vision cleared.  His face was burning, but his knees held firm as he took a step forward.

"That's a good boy."

He was ready.  His sword was secure in his sweating palm.  He took a steadying breath.

 _Master, I avenge thee-.._.

Beside him, the stag broke like a branch.

A hard hand shoved him aside as the horned man succumbed to the urge to fall down, open his mouth, and let the leader sink himself to the hilt in his willing throat.  The shock jarred Yasuo out of his focus -- and what took over was chaos.

_You?!  No!  No!!  That's mine!_

Without a thought, he lunged onto the man's back.  The stag threw his head back instinctively, and Yasuo grabbed the horns with both hands.  His sword dropped to the floor, unheeded; it didn't matter.  What mattered was satisfying the new rage in his blood that another man -- another man! -- would steal the prize that was rightfully his.

The stag was just as frenzied.  He bucked and wheeled, but his passenger had a solid grip and would not be dislodged.  He went to brute-force tricks; throwing his head around, dropping to the floor to crush Yasuo beneath him, running backwards into walls.  There was no art or style to Yasuo's counter-attacks either; he held on with hands and knees, taking the blows as they came, kicking or punching whenever he got a chance.

Chiming constantly over their thuds and grunts was the music of the leader's laughter.

The stag, ultimately, ended it himself; he slammed the two of them repeatedly into a wall until Yasuo was knocked loose, breathless and dizzy.  But he kept throwing his head back; his antlers finally broke through the wall and lodged there, trapping him. 

Yasuo battered him into unconsciousness like a horse trampling a snake.

"Good boy."  The leader embraced him from behind.  The scent, the fever swamped him; as before, it wasn't the windblade from Ionia who surrendered, turned, dropped gracelessly to his knees, opened his mouth.  It was a mindless animal who could make no sound but a desperate whine.

A hand stroked his hair.  "You're such a good boy.  I'm so proud of you."

In a parody of consent, he took the man by the hips and looked up.  The flesh that came to rest on his lower lip was smoother than skin and pulsing with a steady throb.  For the briefest of instants, he faltered, but a hand cupped his jaw.

"Go on, bitch-boy.  Don't get nervous now."

He breathed on it, touched it with his tongue.  Under the encouraging pressure of those fingers, he dropped his jaw and took his first mouthful of another man.

It was like nothing in his experience.  It was so jarring -- the hot, pulsing solidity that overfilled his mouth and insistently pushed itself deeper -- that he nearly fell out of the moment.  But his body had surrendered to the mating rush and was no longer his own; even as his throat gagged and his eyes watered, it cried for more, more, more; too far gone to hear anything; too overwhelmed to see.  It responded only to the pull of those hands in his long hair and its own rhythm.  The man Yasuo was long gone, drowned under that tide; his shell served another man's will, even though it choked with every breath, even as it set a pace it couldn't sustain. 

But the man who had mastered him had his limits too.  When he pulled out, the wail of loss that followed was a sound Yasuo had never made for anyone, not even Yone. 

But then came the hot spatters on his upturned face.  He closed his eyes and let them fall.

Warm, wet strings fell on his forehead, his eyelids, the scar over his nose.  He opened his mouth, and the taste inspired a last burst of greed that drove him to seize the man's cock again and rub his nose and cheekbones against it, coax and milk and finally suck the last few drops, all to hold the spell just a heartbeat longer.

Then it was over.

It was horrible how quickly the excitement faded.  In seconds, he went from a trembling but satisfied animal to a shaken, sickened man; a man on his knees with cum on his face and the taste of a dick in his throat.  His skin crawled; he shivered.  He longed for enough water to boil himself.

"What a good boy," crooned the man, stroking his head again.  "You were so good.  And it was only your first time."

_"You bastard....!"_

He tried to spring up, but he couldn't.  His thighs had no strength.  He couldn't get a full breath past the swelling in his throat.

Then something entered his field of vision.  It was blurry -- it should be, it was pointed directly at his eye.  He seized it.  Pain bit deep into his palms.

The man was holding his own sword.

"You precious little assassin."  He used vastayan words, not realizing or not caring whether Yasuo understood him.  "Do you still want to kill me?  How will you do it now?"

He stared.  Over three feet of Ionian masterwork steel bridged the gap between his heart and the man's wrists.

"Now, be a good boy and let go."

"No."

"Don't make me destroy you."

"I said no."

The touch of wind at his chest was the brush of Wolf's coarsest whisker.  The sweat on his forehead suddenly felt cold.

"You have three seconds to let go."

The light above the man's head was Lamb, serenely drawing her bow.  She offered a peaceful end to those who accepted her.  Around and around them her partner prowled, eager for the horror that would follow if he fought.

"Three."

_Yone...  I promised._

"Two."

Yasuo took a deep breath.

"One..."

_"Face the wind!"_

From useless pot-metal trinkets to gods-blessed relics, every sword is the same: a long piece of metal with an edge on it.  The blade end sticks out of the handle; the dull end hides inside; the hilt covers the place where they meet; the pommel at the end holds it all together.  Yasuo's sword was a masterwork blade with the hilt and guard and pommel sculpted like the scudding clouds.  He'd nearly wept when Souma presented it to him.  But it was still just a sword.

The vastayan _vetanyi_ sent his wind-thrust down from the hilt.  The Ionian windblade, gritting his teeth against the pain, sent a counter-thrust up from the tip.  The winds met and locked together in the middle, not lancing out of the tip nor surging from the end of the tang.  There they remained, trapped... at least, as long as both of them pushed with equal force.

Whoever stopped channeling first would die.

It was the other man's turn to sweat.  "You stubborn bitch!"

He locked eyes with the man.  "Let go. Of my.  Sword."

_"Ehuu den!"_

Tiny updrafts rose all around them.  The blade was turning cold.  Frost slowly bloomed on its surface, but Yasuo knew it wouldn't be the steel that failed.

"Let go, you idiot."

The man swore at him again.

"Death is here.  I see them," Yasuo said.

"Then they've come... for you."  The man grunted and threw more of himself into the spell.  The cold metal began to hum, but Yasuo narrowed his eyes and held on.

"No.  They want you.  Let go.  Live."

The hum grew louder.  A persistent rattle started up somewhere in the hilt.  He fixed the picture of what was about to happen in his mind and sent the wind up, higher and stronger.

The leader's voice turned desperate.  "What's it to you?!  Why do you care?!"

"You're a windblade..."

_"You don't say, bitch-b-"_

The sword hit its limits. It reverted to blade, hilt, grip, pommel -- and flew apart in a violent burst of wind...

Yasuo let himself fall backward, feeling the sting as the blade leaped in his hand, but it was nothing compared to the force that shoved the pommel...

...the sharp-edged, carved pommel...

...up into the other man's chest.

What he heard -- the last thing he heard for a while -- was a cracking sound, like heavy glass.  Then there was a dull thud.  Yasuo lay on his back, watching the ceiling drift away.  Just before darkness took everything, he heard a disappointed growl and saw the flip of a white woolly tail.

 _Have patience.  I'll see you soon_. 

He couldn't have said how much time passed before he came back to himself.  When he sat up, the movement broke open the wounds on his palms; the cuts were deep, but at least his armor had saved his fingers.  He saw the stag man, conscious now, thrashing to free himself with the same frenzy that had put him there in the first place.

_Now what could-_

Then he saw the leader.  He was curled up, red-faced, sweating, and obviously in the grasp of a desperate need.  On his chest was a broken mess that had once been a beautiful gem.  Yasuo instinctively touched the last remnant of True Ice over his own heart.

 _So this is what you really are_.

"Look at you."  He couldn't have kept the contempt out of his voice if he'd tried. _"Vetanyi jer-am."_

"S....silence...."

"Child of the Maker, how could you?"

"It's not... for an outsider... like you... to understand..."

_But I do._

He stood and picked up the long bare blade of his sword.  "I came here to kill you and avenge Elder Souma.  But this is the better justice."  He nodded at the stag man.  "Why don't I let him go so he can have you first?  Then I'll send all of your _astenai_  up here.  Just imagine how much fun they'll have with you before the Ionians come to pick you up."

The squeak from the floor was enough to pierce any heart.

"Unless you can offer me something to end it sooner..."

He waited.  In remarkably short time, the wretch spoke.  "Like what?"

"Do you remember the man who died in these rooms?"

"Souma...  the elder..."

"Yes.  Tell me why you killed him."

"I... I was hired."

Yasuo blinked, but all he said was "Can you prove it?"

"Promise... kill me first... not leave me... to them..."

 _I have to know.  I need to know_.  "I promise."

"Letter.... my room...."

"Where?"

"Gold box."

The piece of paper was folded and still had a trace of its wax seal.  It had been written in simplified Ionian and vastayan; he looked at it only long enough to see Souma's name and some figure of payment, then stashed it in a deep pocket.

 _Proof, at last_. 

All he had to do was present this to Elder Wasuya and his people, just outside the west gate, and his name would be cleared.  It was so close to being done, after so long...

The blade felt awkward in his hand without a grip or the counterweight of the pommel.  He put it to the leader's throat; the man didn't look at him.  He just stayed in a fetal curl, eyes closed, breathing raggedly.

The wind thrust cut both arteries.  Swiftly, mercifully, he bled out.  Yasuo stood over him until he was certain the man was dead.

 _So it ends. Another body in another pool of blood_.

He sighed.  He'd pictured this moment so many times, but he'd never imagined it like this.  Not with a disassembled sword, not with his sweat-damp hair itching, not with sticky, drying strings all over his face.  Not waiting to feel a satisfaction that would never come.

_Did I really think killing him would make everything better?_

When he turned to the trapped stag, the man blanched.  "Kill me too, murderer?"

"For what you did to my son, I should."

"Bitch-boy."

The insult seemed to come from years ago and miles away.  Yasuo looked at him and saw his corpse hanging there, meat on the hook, noble as a slaughterhouse.

He sheathed his blade with the leader's blood still on it.  "I don't have time for you."

"I saw you!  I will remember!"  The man started kicking the wall with his hooved feet.  "I will see you dead.  Murderer!  MURDERER!!"

 _You may, actually.  May it bring you joy_.

He was numb as he walked out.  He had no memory of meeting the other  _astenai_ , nor how he got away from them if he did.  The streets of Seons'e passed in a pre-dawn blur of grey and brown.  Off in the hills, the tents of Elder Wasuya were dark.  He'd have to wake someone up to arrest him.

 _It's been a long night_.

At the west gate, under the city's only working lantern, he opened the letter again to make certain of its contents.

"...contract... for your excellent work... Elder Souma of Seons'e... for the amount of... plus expenses... to be paid upon... Destroy this letter... will deny any knowledge of..."

Then he reached the last line.

_What ... is... this?_

"By my hand and seal, Elder Wasuya of Canes'e."

_Oh, no.  Oh, no..._

Instinct took over when his mind failed.  He ran.  South, down the city streets, through the ugly breech in the wall, then south again, south and a little west.

_Elder Wasuya is my master's true killer...?_

It made sense.  It made horrible and perfect sense.  There had been so many questions without answers, until now.  The beautiful new road.  The wealth of the town.  Ionians in purple carriages.  With their Elder's approval and blessing, they came to Seons'e for their 'recreation'.  And when they arrived, they found a vastayan leader and his warband benevolently holding the town, ensuring a constant supply of boys and girls who were in no position to resist.

_Wasuya set this up so he and his could enjoy the flesh of vastayan children.  And now he's here, looking for me, because I told him where to find me._

He tried to force more speed out of his tired legs.  There was another Eldership within reach.  He had to make it.  Elder Issaku might not welcome a fugitive at his doorstep, but the man was his only chance.

_If I turn myself in, or they find me now, I'll die a murderer and no one will ever know..._


	8. Chapter 8

He climbed the last few steps, mentally chanting the same pattern of syllables he had used to get this far.

_Vaska.  Gili.  Taliyah.  Her._

The two guards were taking him to Elder Issaku in a more literal way than usual; they had his arms, and he was leaning into their support.  He could barely feel the floor through his bruised toes, and the balls of his feet burned when he rested his weight on them.  His knees felt swollen to twice their normal size.

It was now mid-afternoon.  He'd run all through what remained of the night, and walked the rest of the way.  Just outside of Ginys'e, he'd stopped at a well to get a drink and scrub off the road grime as best as he could, but not even the cold water could wake him up entirely.  He'd submerged his entire head and let the water soak his hair, hoping to stay moving through sheer irritation.  He felt like that leaky well pitcher, every step draining a bit more from his dwindling reserve.

_Vaska.  Gili.  Taliyah.  Her._

"This is Elder Issaku's audience chamber."  The guards had brought him to a pair of purple doors (how he'd come to loathe that color), one of which was slightly opened.  There was scattered applause as the elder made some announcement, followed by a murmur of conversation.

"One moment."  _Better put myself together._

He reached into the bag around his neck and pulled out the rough thread.  Grimacing as the movement awakened the pains in his shoulders, he pulled his hair back and tied it.  He straightened up, brushed himself off, and made a quick check that the things he carried were still where they were supposed to be.  Then, just for a second or two, he held Yone's dark brown lock to his nose.

One of the guards cleared his throat.  "Ready now?"

 _Is anyone ready for this?_  He nodded, drew himself up, and walked in alone.

"Yasuo of Seons'e," announced a voice behind him, and the conversation died in a collective gasp.

He'd always sworn that, at the end, he would go with dignity.  But walking in as he did, straight and tall, eyes forward, face calm, took every bit of discipline he'd ever learned from Souma.  The hall seemed to stretch for miles; the elder never seemed to get any closer.  But it was the way everyone was staring at him -- hostile, surprised, even scared -- that weighted his feet until every step was an effort.

At just the right place, he stopped, went down on his knees, then leaned forward and extended his arms until his palms were flat and the tips of his fingers just reached the edge of the rug where Elder Issaku was seated.  Only then, with his nose nearly touching the floor, did he let out the breath he'd been holding.

Protocol said that he could not speak until the elder had spoken first.  Issaku was apparently in no hurry, so the silence stretched until the audience began to whisper and fidget.  Yasuo remained in his deep bow, content to be still.

"Yasuo of Seons'e," Issaku said at last.  "We greet you.  What brings you to our hall?"

He raised himself to a kneeling position but did not look up.  "Venerable and honorable elder, this unworthy one seeks your favor."

"You come before us with a request?"  There was a definite note of scorn in the man's voice.  "You, a murderer?"

"This unworthy one is not a murderer," he replied in the same very formal Ionian.  "This one has come to petition the honorable elder for justice."

"We have no interest in your case," Issaku said.  "We feel you were condemned justly."

"This one does not seek justice for himself.  This one seeks justice for Elder Souma of Seons'e."

"Then you have come to us for arrest and execution, for you are the murderer."

Yasuo was suddenly too tired to stay polite.  "My master was killed by contract.  I found his assassin last night.  Before he died, he confessed to the crime."

Issaku was frowning.  "We cannot accept this on your word alone."

"I also have the letter of contract."

A speculative rustle swept the room.  Issaku put a stop to it with a wave of his hand.  "Who paid for the contract?"

"I would not say with so many present, honorable elder."

The man sighed.  Then he waved at the audience again.  "Leave us."

The crowd cleared, but the guards did not.  They surrounded Yasuo, eyeing him warily.

"Enough pleasantries."  Issaku gestured at him.  "Stand up."

"I... don't think I can."

The man looked at him, then at the red smears on the floor where his hands had been.  "You are injured?"

"It is not serious, honorable elder."

"Get him something to sit on."  The man regarded him in silence for a moment.  Despite the "elder" title, Issaku was perhaps ten years older than Yasuo himself; his chestnut hair was greying only at the temples, and his arms and shoulders were still well developed from a career as an archer.  He'd inherited Ginys'e and the title when he and a small band of followers had broken up the feud between two rival houses who wanted to put one of their own in charge.  His reign had been peaceful since then, though he'd yet to make a real name for himself.

"Before I look at this letter of yours, are you turning yourself in?"

He hesitated only briefly.  "Yes."

"Huh..."  Issaku looked at him again.  "I never thought you would surrender peacefully."

"All I wanted was to clear my name."  He reached into his clothing, careful to move slowly, and pulled out the letter.  "But I need protection."

The elder took the letter from one of the guards and read it over several times without speaking.  His men started to shift their weight.  Yasuo rubbed his eyes, finding it harder to stay awake with a soft cushion under him.

"Elder Wasuya.  Who would have suspected...?"  He shook his head.  "Why?"

"He had dealings with the assassin.  When the vastaya took Seons'e, they could do it more freely."

"'Dealings'...?"

"Flesh trade, of the ugliest kind."

Issaku groaned.  "How did you discover this?"

Yasuo gave an abbreviated version of his encounters with the star-mark men, from the time he rescued Gili and Vaska until the previous night.  He left in the tale of Sasoume but omitted most of the vastayan mating dynamics, saying only that the _astenai_ preyed on the 'vulnerable.'  When he was done, Issaku was staring at the floor, and even his guards looked uncomfortable.

After another pause, the elder spoke.  "You must realize, this comes as an unpleasant surprise.  But you've put yourself in my hands, and I will do what I can to see that you get justice for your master."

The tension suddenly ran out of his back and shoulders.  "Thank you, honorable elder."

"I must get back to work.  My men will show you to a room.  Since you have surrendered to me, I trust you to behave yourself."  He paused.  "Your sword, if you please."

 _You knew this was coming_...  His hands left red marks on the rope belt as he untied it; he made himself hand the scabbard over without a pause.  But when its weight passed from his hands, he felt suddenly light headed.

"Please take this too, " he heard himself say.  He fumbled in his clothing and found the white stone.  "This is Demacian.  They claim it blocks magic.  All their walls are made with it."

"Of course.  Thank you," the man replied very gently.  "Jin, Edsu, take him somewhere he can lie down."

He had no strength to stand when they lifted him.  He felt the pressure of their arms against his back, but his legs wouldn't obey him, and his insides had become an unstable mess of anxiety.

_I trusted him.  What if I'm wrong?  What if I'm wrong?  What if...?_

He must have been close to blacking out, because suddenly he was sitting in a chair somewhere else.  The room smelled of alcohol and bandages.  A man was holding his wrist down while someone else looked at the wound on his left palm.

"Is he awake?"

"Think so, but he's out of it."

The vivid splash of pain as they cleaned the cut brought him fully alert; he jumped, gasped, and said something rude in Old Ionian.  One of them chuckled.  "Stings, doesn't it?"

He blinked at them.  Their faces were melting and blurring.  The bright burn of disinfectant was already fading into the grey.

"Grab him.  He's going..." one of them said.

Then he was gone.

* * *

Yasuo had no clear memory of the next few days.  All the injuries and insomnia of his years on the run had caught up with him, and they wanted their due.

At first, it was merely confusing.  His life went from scene to scene and moment to moment with no explanation.  Day became night; sunrise became evening.  He would be awake and feeling fairly alert and then suddenly he would be in bed.  His attempts to speak to the guards ended in mid sentence, sometimes even in mid word.

Uncertainty gave way to fear, and after that to near panic.  But before he could do something desperate, fever set in, and his confused world became something he didn't even recognize.

He was always in bed.  There was that much stability.  But next to him could be the Noxian madwoman, or Gili and Vaska, or the vastayan elder who'd called him "my child."  Sometimes it was several of them in a group, sometimes it was a strange amalgamation.  He even dreamed about his sword once, snapped in two and wailing a metallic shriek.  That one brought him fully awake; he sat panting in a cold sweat until weariness took him under again.  Some events he knew must have been real: he saw Issaku once, telling them they were going to Seons'e; he had regular visits from one Ionian woman he thought was a doctor.  Some were so abstract he simply waited them out; colors and sounds in no pattern or rhythm, words he could neither remember nor understand.

When the nightmares came, he was almost ready for them.  He relieved every fear and danger he'd ever faced, from the vastayan assassin to the boulder that had nearly ended it in the first week.  He killed Yone a hundred times.  He watched Gili slaughtered; he saw a dozen variants on what had happened to Vaska.  He stared in impotent panic as Taliyah vanished off the edge of a cliff.

The happy dreams were the worst of all, because he invariably realized midway through that they were just an illusion.

The fever eventually broke in the dark of night, and sunrise found him back in his right mind.  The sheets were damp, his hair was a crawling mass of itch, his eyes were grainy, and his mouth tasted of food he had no memory of eating.

Issaku had given him a suite, with a single guard sitting in the anteroom.  When Yasuo wobbled to the doorframe and asked where he could wash up, a small army of servants promptly came in to draw him a bath, bring something for breakfast, and lay out his clothes.  The clucked over his bandaged hands and undressed him without waiting for any permission; he was past embarrassment when they scrubbed him, washed his hair, and gave him a cup of something to rinse his mouth out.  He wondered what they'd think of the True Ice on his chest, but when he looked down, it was gone.  Nothing remained but a small, diamond-shaped mark; his fever must have burned it away.

A couple of the men stayed with him, and the rest went to inform Elder Issaku that he was up and moving.  A couple of trays arrived for breakfast, but he found he had very little appetite and ended up offering most of it to them.  The clothes they helped him into were the same motley of Ionian and vastayan that he'd used to enter Seons'e, cleaned and mended.  He strapped his armor over the top, needing help with a few of the buckles since his hands were shaking.  His balance was off, which bothered him until he remembered that he no longer had his sword.

When the servants left, he sat on the bed, feeling more than a little alone.  But Issaku summoned him before he could truly set to brooding.

"Well, it's been an eventful week."

_It's been a week?!_

"How are you feeling?"

"Much better, thank you elder."

"Are you well enough to travel?"

"I think so."

"Good.  As soon as the carriage is loaded, we're going to Seons'e."

One of his few lucid memories swam to the surface.  "I remember you said that.  But isn't Wasuya in Canes'e?"

"No.  Apparently he never left after he came to arrest you."

"Why?"

"Things have become.... complicated."

Exactly how complicated was their topic of discussion on the way.  First, Issaku claimed, Wasuya had sent a messenger to warn him that Yasuo might approach him with forged evidence.  "He explicitly said you had a letter.  Now I'm certain what you gave me is real."

Yasuo stared at the man's amused expression.  "I'm not sure I follow."

"If Wasuya didn't already know you had that letter, why would he mention it?  And if he didn't fear its contents, why try to discredit them?"  Issaku shook his head.  "So I told the man I'd keep an eye out and sent him off."

That had been mere hours after Yasuo had turned himself in.  Over the next few days, as word -- or at least, rumors -- spread that Yasuo was in Ginys'e, letters had begun to arrive at the rate of two or three a day, all demanding that Issaku turn him over.

"All from Wasuya?"  He wouldn't have credited the man with so much dedication

"No.  From three different camps."  Issaku took a stack of folded paper out of his pocket and divided it.  "This pile is from Wasuya's group.  So far I have not replied.  The longer the week has gone, the uglier their language."

Yasuo looked away.

"Never fear.  I promised you justice.  Wasuya condemned you from the very beginning, and now I know why."  He cleared his throat.  "This second one is..."

"The vastayan rebels."  He could see the star mark already.

"They want me to surrender you to them so you can face _their_ justice.  They say they will take it as an insult to all vastaya if we ignore your crimes, and they will march to war."

 _War_...  "They didn't know what was happening in Seons'e.  Not all of it, anyway."

"Oh?"  Issaku straightened up.  "What makes you so certain?"

"The vastaya..."  He paused, not sure how much to say.  "The vastaya blame Ionians for their lack of children.  They claim we are taking the magic out of the land.  But the truth is, only a few vastayans are really fertile.  And those same..."

Issaku made a point of looking out the carriage window.

"Those same have a _need_  to mate.  They can't resist a more powerful man."

"Ah.  So they were the vulnerable ones, as you put it."

"The _astenai_ leader stole them, used them up.  I've seen their bones."  It was Yasuo's turn to clear his throat.  "So no, I don't think the rebels knew."

"Makes sense.  Though I don't know if they'll believe it from you."  The elder brought out a third stack, taller than the others.  "Now, these are from a group who support you."

_That many?_

"They're threatening quite a bit if any harm comes to you.  What exactly have you been up to, Yasuo?"

The gleam in Issaku's eye couldn't soothe his discomfort.  "I haven't offended all the vastaya yet."

"They're calling you a holy man, a hero, a savior.  You must have done _something_."

His face was getting warm.  "Nothing deserving such words, honorable elder."

The other man, mercifully, dropped the subject.  "And then there's this one."

The scrap of parchment was folded around a lock of ash-blonde, nearly white hair.  He read its large and awkward Ionian characters and felt a sharp pain in the back of his throat.

_"Madman.  I hate you.  Come home."_

"Ah..."

"Do you know the sender?" asked the elder with a too-innocent expression.

 _Have I ever?  Truly?_   "May I keep this?" he asked instead.  At the elder's nod, he tucked the letter into his clothing.  The lock went with Yone's into the bag around his neck.  "I know who sent it.  She is a Noxian... something.  She claims that she needs me, that I need her, and that she is dead."

Issaku snorted.  "Some woman."

"She's quite mad.  But nothing will come of it."  Yasuo sat back and looked up.  Even the ceiling was purple.  "If I had not abandoned Elder Souma, he would have lived.  I mean to face execution for my part in his death.  That's the only honorable path."

"So you mean to go to Wasuya's group after all."

"They are Souma's closest relatives.  They have the right," Yasuo replied, though he felt no real connection to the words.

"And when the vastaya attack Ionia because _they_ wanted to kill you?"

"I might be able to defuse the rebels."

"You might not.  And what about _your_ vastaya?  What about your unhinged Noxian?"

He snorted.  "Don't call her mine."

"Will they take it well if Ionia executes you?"

 _Of course they won't_.  "They will grieve..."

"Nonsense.  These are people who consider you a hero.  They will rage.  And then they will avenge."

"They will not."

 _Vaska will_.

"They will."  Issaku nodded as if he could hear the thought.  "Most of them hate Ionians, and those who didn't before will have a reason.  Oh, maybe only one or two will get violent, but it only takes one."  His eyes grew harder.  "And then no one in Ginys'e will sleep safe."

"But law and honor _demand_ -"

"Suicide?"

"Justice."

"Fine.  Go to the rebel vastaya.  I'm sure they'd be happy to kill you."

"And then 'my' vastaya will get mad at them."

"Exactly."

 _He wants a vastayan war-of-the-brothers_.

For an instant, all he could see were the fields south of Seons'e covered in bodies; the ruined harbor stained red...  "There has to be another way."

"So I'd like to think.  But there are three groups, and two of them are going to be unhappy with the third when this is over.  Can you blame me for preferring the vastaya to be angry with each other?"

"There are innocent people in Seons'e."

"And in Ginys'e.  Guess where my concern is?"

"This is dishonorable."

"No, this is government."  Issaku was frowning now.  "Honor is a _boouli_ tree."  Those Ionian trees were famous for having a different appearance depending on where you viewed them. "You could find a perfectly honorable reason to go live with your vastaya.  I wouldn't stop you, nor would my men."

 _This is getting us nowhere._   "You promised justice for Elder Souma."

"I remember.  I have plans to confront Wasuya very publicly and loudly."  He shrugged.  "But that was all I promised."

"I'm guilty.  You said as much.  You can't let a criminal go free."

Issaku looked at him for a long moment.  Then he bent down and picked up a wrapped bundle from under his seat, almost as long as the carriage was wide.  "I can't see why you're in such a hurry to die by Ionian hands.  But if it's truly what you want, I know a compromise."

Under the silk was the mahogany gleam of an unstrung bow.  "This is Brown Beauty.  We've been together a long time."

When the elder handed him an arrow with bright fletching and a head of chipped stone (not Noxian steel or Ionian bronze), Yasuo began to understand.

"A vastayan arrow... from an Ionian bow."

Issaku didn't blink.  "A compromise."

Yasuo made no reply.

The other man stroked the wood of his bow.  It was a tender gesture.  "I haven't let my skills go.  That arrow will stick wherever I aim it.  If you want to be executed, I'll give you that justice -- though I'll be honest, Yasuo, it's not my will.  I'd rather see you go live with the vastaya who call you their hero."

_One way or the other, the vastaya get me._

"You planned this."

"I was aware that it might happen."  Issaku calmly wrapped up his bow and set it back under his seat. 

Yasuo went silent again, rolling the arrow between his fingers.

"Think it over and make your choice.  We'll be in Seons'e by sunset."

* * *

When they stopped for a break, Issaku got out of the carriage and joined the outriders.  Yasuo was left alone for what might be the last time in his life.  He tried to calm himself, but his thoughts ran in frantic circles.

Go live with the vastaya.

_no honor no justice exile what about all the people I killed what about Yone_

Accept justice and Issaku's arrow.

_vastayan civil war no peace no safety Vaska and Gili and the madwoman Seons'e burned and blood and blood and blood_

He gripped his head in his hands.

_and blood and blood and blood and..._

"Is there no other way?" he whispered.

He couldn't have said how long he sat curled, shaking under the weight of the terrible decision.  His body -- treasonous body! -- was adding to his misery now; ever since the True Ice had gone, an itch had started under his skin, and even the sharp autumn air felt warm.

Eventually he raised his head.  His lower eyelids burned. 

 _Why was I born?_ He pressed the blended lock of brown and blonde to his nose.  _What spite of the gods caused me to be?  What cruelty made my mother name me 'peacemaker'?_

His eyes spilled over.  "There was never peace because of me.  There was only blood and shame."

As he sat huddled there, the vibration of the carriage and the hoofbeats of the moon horses faded into a luminous silence.  He felt isolated from the world, yet somehow not alone.

 _If you want peace, buy it,_ his thoughts whispered to him.

"With what?"

 _With the coin of your body and blood_.

"The coin of my body..."  He trailed off.

Debt obligation.  The one thing all Ionians held sacred.

He uncurled and found the bamboo tube he'd taken from his childhood home.  At the time, all he'd wanted was to salvage something that used to be precious to him.  Now he understood.  This was a certificate of bond; evidence of a debt that had never been repaid.

All things come from the vastaya.  It had never occurred to him before now that these were not _gifts_.

He held the tube and its contents to his heart.   _I will repay, lame bird.  I vow, if I can, as much as I can, I will repay._


	9. Chapter 9

When Issaku rejoined him in the carriage, it was almost sunset.  "We're about an hour out of Seons'e.  We've picked up that very fine road Wasuya built."

He nearly chuckled at the disgust in the other man's voice.  "You should see how the vastaya do it."

The elder looked out the window for a moment.  "The Council has sent three Special Arbiters to Seons'e.  Our best chance to show Wasuya's guilt will be there."

Arbitration.  Like disputed property.  "I see."

Issaku turned to him.  He seemed tired.  "Have you made your decision?"

"Yes.  I think I know an honorable way to go with the vastaya."

The other man relaxed a little. "Good.  I hoped you would see sense."

"But..."

"But?"

"Before I leave, I have to try to make peace."

"You can't," the elder said to the window.

"I have to try," he said again.

"This conflict has lasted for generations.  Will you solve it just by talking to them?"

He didn't rise to the bait.  "I couldn't live with myself if I didn't try."

"As you will."  Issaku's look had shifted to resignation.  He took his bow out of its wrappings, stroked the wood once with his fingertips, and strung it.  He checked his stock of Ionian arrows with their narrow, armor-piercing heads and slung the quiver over one shoulder.

"You expect trouble?"

The elder blinked, then coughed a laugh.  "You don't?"

* * *

Half an hour later, a makeshift barricade across the road into Seons'e put a halt to their progress.  Brandishing torches and swords, Wasuya's men surrounded the carriage and demanded Yasuo.

"Stay inside."  Issaku put an arrow to the string and went out to meet them. 

After a tense few minutes and some shouting (Yasuo later learned that one of Issaku's men had ridden at the ringleader and nearly trampled him), they settled for 'escorting' the carriage into the city.  Nor did they stop until they were outside the building that used to be a public hall.

Yasuo was pulled from the carriage so fast he didn't have time to properly collect himself, which was doubtless the point.  He briefly lost track of who was friend and who was foe; he was surrounded by men who pulled and shoved him until they arrived at the main chamber.

_This is off to a fine start._

He couldn't count how many hands grabbed his arms, shoulders, hair and forced him to his knees before the panel that would decide his fate.  The Ionian Special Arbiters -- two women and one man -- shared a table with the vastayan rebel leader Xayah and the long-bearded elder who had spoken to him in the tent.  Elder Wasuya was standing to one side, and his eyes were shining.

 _Smile, murderer_.

Elder Issaku fought his way through the crowd with his bow still in hand.  "Release him.  This is disgraceful."

Wasuya all but spit on the floor.  "You talk graces?  You, aiding and abetting a fugitive?"

"The good elder will remember not to speak out of turn," said one of the Arbiters.

"Indeed.  Mind your manners, youngling."  Wasuya had been an elder longer than Yasuo had been alive, and he looked the part; slicked-back silver hair, slightly pointed ears, and a hunched way of standing that seemed more for effect than for any infirmity.

"As I said, good elder, wait your turn."  This was apparently the lead Arbiter; he was the oldest of the three, and he wore a full beard.  In his hand was the golden wand that was the symbol of his profession.  "If everyone with an interest in this case is finally here, let us begin."

After introductions, and some shuffling, Yasuo was finally permitted to stand on his own.  Ionian Special Arbiters were a branch of the court system; they couldn't judge crimes or issue sentences, but they could settle civil disagreements.  The rules were simple: whoever held the wand could speak.  The stick was enchanted to amplify the speaker's voice, and it supposedly had the power of translation, though he'd never seen it used.

"Let me do the talking," Issaku said under his breath.

"For a start, Elder Issaku," the lead Arbiter said, "please tell us how this man came into your custody."

Issaku leaned forward to take the wand.  "This man, Yasuo of Seons'e, came to Ginys'e about a week ago and turned himself in."

"We issued a summons several days ago.  Why did you wait so long to come to Seons'e?" asked the younger of the two female Arbiters.

"He was in poor health.  When he came to my hall, he was injured and close to collapse.  He hasn't been well enough to travel until just this morning."

"Surely you were aware of the danger of harboring a fugitive."

The elder drew himself up a little.  "Ginys'e will watch Ginys'e, but I appreciate your concern."

Yasuo had been watching the two vastaya during this exchange.  The rebel leader, Xayah, leaned on her elbow, obviously bored.  Behind her, a golden man preened and fussed with a mirror like a noblewoman's _do'ole_ bird.  The vastayan elder sat with steepled fingers; he caught Yasuo's gaze and gave him an encouraging nod.

"My colleague's question has merit, good elder," said the other woman.  She had the same pale robes and silver chain across the forehead as her fellows, and her light eyes were particularly piercing.  "A murderer fell into your hands, but you waited a week, nursed him back to health, and then brought him back to Seons'e?"

Issaku snorted.  "Should I have executed him on the spot?  Killed him in his bed?"

She didn't back down.  "Why help a murderer?  Did you not know what he had done?"

"I know what he is accused of doing.  And all I will say to the rest of it is that I had my reasons.  This isn't my trial."  He set the wand back on the table with authority.

Wasuya was nearly dancing in place, but the lead Arbiter passed the wand to Xayah.  "What is your claim to this man?"

"He's an Ionian assassin," she said with a shrug.  "He went into Sanshe, sabotaged the place, ruined their equipment, lamed three horses, and then he murdered Kurshi-de."

The lead Arbiter glanced at Yasuo.  "Did you do all of that?"

Yasuo nodded, feeling sorry only for the horses.

"What will you do with him if we hand him over to you?"

"You won't.  You don't care what happens to us mutts."  She waved the golden wand around as she talked, and the eyes of the man behind her followed it.  "But if you hand him over, we'll take it out on him and not go after the rest of you."

"I believe you'll find that threats of force don't go very far in court," said the bright-eyed Arbiter.

Xayah shrugged again.  "Ionian words aren't worth anything.  What you say never lines up with what you do ."

The vastayan elder had his chance to speak next.  "This man may have killed one vastayan, but he saved dozens more.  He is a hero to us, and he would be welcome in our villages."

"How did he save them?" asked the youngest Arbiter.

"He exposed -- pardon me, Xayah-otsa, but Kurshi was not an honorable man.  You knew he brought _mataya-ki_ to Sanshe.  But you did not know that he was selling them."

Her head snapped around, and her long ears stood up tall in shock.  "What...?"

"This man exposed his trade.  He rescued two boys before they could be sold.  He helped us rescue the survivors.  And he warned the people of Sanshe so they could get out in time."

"But.... but.... an Ionian..."

"He is one of us.  Smell it on him.  He is of the blood."

"Peace," said the lead Arbiter.  "Have your discussions some other time."  He reached out to take the wand; Wasuya nearly snatched it out of his hand.

"Elder Wasuya."  This was from the sharp-eyed woman.  "You are trying our patience."

The older man scowled.  "Don't make me wait through this nonsense and talk of patience."

The main Arbiter frowned back.  "Elder, you have been warned about speaking out of turn.  We already know that you want this man's blood, so make your statements brief."

"Fine.  He's a murderer.  Hand him over to face justice."  The elder unrolled a long piece of paper.  "All of these are his victims.  Elder Souma of Seons'e was his first victim, and since then he has killed and killed again.  He's a sword without a sheath.  Do us all a favor and let me put him down."

Over the objections of the Arbiters, Wasuya read the entire list.  They were all Ionians.  Some had been fellow students, some had been guards or soldiers, nameless until now.  Yasuo made himself look directly forward, waiting for the name that was doubtless reserved for the end.  He didn't watch the Arbiters shifting restlessly, or Xayah staring at her fingers.

"...and of course the most tragic of all, his own brother, Yone of Seons'e.  A devoted soldier and a good man, cut down by this monster's blade."

 _A good man, indeed.  But his blood is on your hands_.

The youngest Arbiter turned to Yasuo.  "Do you wish to answer your accuser?"

"I am innocent of Souma's blood.  My other kills were in self defense," he replied, and repeated himself in Old Ionian.  "I am not a sword without a sheath."

Wasuya turned to address Xayah.  "Your rebel leader was not killed in self defense.  This man stalked, he plotted, he sabotaged, and finally he assassinated."

"To save lives," the vastayan elder said.

"What number of saved lives can make up for the blood he's shed?  And how can you expect that he won't turn his blade tomorrow on the ones he saved today?  On you?  A man who would kill his own brother would kill anyone."

Issaku broke the uncomfortable silence that followed by clearing his throat.  When one of the Arbiters gave him the barest nod of acknowledgement, he walked over and took the wand from Wasuya.  "Honorable elder, when you read the names of this man's killings, I was listening very carefully.  There's a name I know should be there, but you didn't read it.  That seems odd to me.  Why did you not mention Sasoume of Canes'e?"

Wasuya started to answer, but Issaku spoke over him.  "I know why.  And so do you.  He was involved in a business that you'd rather not have mentioned.  It was a very nasty business between Canes'e and Seons'e."  He looked at the vastayans.  "Or perhaps I should say Sanshe."  

The golden man behind Xayah was the first to understand.  He stopped dancing, and his blue eyes went wide.  An instant later, she froze as well.  The crowd around them began to murmur in confusion.

"Seons'e."  Issaku slapped the wand down into his palm; a sharp _crack_ made half the room jump.  "After Souma died, the Noxians breached it, the vastaya took it, and the rest of us left it to its ruin.  Wasuya built a road to it.  Why?"

Elder Wasuya was staring in mute rage.

"Do you know why, good elder?" asked the lead Arbiter.

"I know one, two, and three, and so I dare to say four."  Issaku cracked the rod again.  "Seons'e is on the Ionian border.  It would make a good base for the vastayan rebels.  Sasoume and others had a taste for young flesh; the rebels needed money to hold the town.  So they made a demon's bargain.  But the town would never fall as long as Souma lived..."

When he reached into his robes, even the vastayan elder reacted.  "Good man, do not-!"

Issaku's eyes were black.  The folded paper in his hand was more frightening than any dagger.

_I know that look._

"This is a letter to a vastayan assassin from an Ionian elder, for the blood of Elder Souma.  Read it, noble Arbiters, and see whose name signed the contract."  Without once taking his eyes from Wasuya, he walked to the table and laid the letter and the wand down in front of them.

With Xayah leaning over his shoulder, the lead Arbiter read the letter out loud.  When Wasuya's name was spoken, the room -- predictably -- erupted.

"You accuse this man, Wasuya?!" shouted Issaku over the din.  " _You_ killed Souma! _You are the murderer!"_

After that, it was madness. 

Wasuya's group screamed at Issaku, and Issaku's group closed ranks around Yasuo in a tight knot, and the vastayans tried to get their people out of the way, and the Arbiters sat mute behind their table.  Feet stomped, weapons came out of hiding.  The sound of furniture dragging on the floor or hitting the walls nearly drowned out the yelling, but somehow Wasuya's reedy voice could be heard above it all: "It's a forgery! Forged!  Forged!"

He didn't see how it happened, but wiser heads prevailed.  They divided the group back into their camps and moved them into separate rooms before the screaming and threats turned to actual violence.  Yasuo looked around the area where he had been herded; he suspected it was a kitchen, or even a pantry.  The men with him were shoved up against tables or wedged under high shelves.

Issaku's focus was gone; he was staring at his hands, breathing as if he'd been running.

 _I know that look too.  '_ _What did I do?'  'What have I done?'_

"I've kept my promise, Yasuo of Seons'e," he said at last.  "Whether Wasuya faces punishment or not, Ionia knows now that he murdered Souma -- and why."

In the somewhat cramped space, he knelt and did the full obeisance again.  "This humble one thanks you, venerable elder."

"Stop that."  He sounded more than a little embarrassed.  "Get up.  You know this isn't over."

 _This part of it is_.  Yasuo drew himself up but remained sitting on the floor.  There was some measure of satisfaction in this -- more than when he killed the assassin -- but there was no particular joy.  There was only a tired silence.

It must have been close to an hour before they were summoned again.  This time, only Yasuo, Issaku, and two of his men were permitted to stand before the Arbiters.  Wasuya glowered on the far side of the room, and the vastayans had the center.  The golden man stood so close to Xayah that they formed a single figure; a bird with mismatched wings.

With the vastayan elder were Gili and Vaska.  Their eyes reached for him, and his throat ached -- to be so close and not be able to touch them!

"Elder Issaku," the main Arbiter said without preamble, "you could do with less candor and more tact.  Your hasty words nearly provoked a riot."

"If the people were outraged, it was because they saw an outrageous thing," the elder replied.

"Nevertheless.  The Arbiters have consulted and come to a decision."  The bearded man turned to Wasuya.  "You claimed that this man committed a string of unprovoked murders, beginning with Elder Souma.  We are not a court of law, but that fact, at the very least, is in doubt.  Since you based your entire case on that fact, your claim is denied."

Elder Wasuya hissed, and the young Ionians with him glared.

"Xayah and Rakan, you claimed this man based on a murder of one of your own.  But at this point I think it is evident that he was justified in his action.  The man Khurshi was a whoremonger and very likely an assassin.  Your claim is also denied."

Xayah said nothing, but her clawed foot drew three long scratches in the floor.

"Honorable Ertehne, you claimed this man because of the good he had done for vastaya, and the lives he had spared.  These with you are two?"

The vastayan elder merely nodded, his beard brushing the ground.  The boys stood square, facing the panel like warriors.  Yasuo's heart swelled.

_My children._

Yasuo felt Issaku relax when the main Arbiter rounded the table and approached the three vastayans with his wand in hand.

_It's a good enough ending.  It's what we both agreed to.  I feel sorry for Seons'e.  But it will do._

"However, we feel that Elder Wasuya was right on one point.  No amount of lives saved can erase the stain of blood shed.  The man Yasuo owes a debt to Ionia which cannot be overlooked or forgiven.  Your claim is denied."

There was a collective intake of breath and then an outburst of voices.  The main Arbiter let it run for a few seconds and then tapped the wand with his fingers three times.  Then he turned.  "Elder Issaku of Ginys'e."

In the quiet that followed, all eyes went to the chestnut-haired man.  He showed no expression, but his whole body had gone rigid.

_What...?_

"Please accept our congratulations.  We have decided to let this man remain in your custody."

The men around Issaku instinctively shifted closer to their leader, who remained frozen and silent.

"We leave his fate is in your hands.  You have heard the cases made by his three accusers."  The main Arbiter held out the wand.  "What is your judgment and sentence?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Yasuo saw Wasuya start to smile.

"Good..."  Issaku coughed and restarted.  "Good Arbiters, I must ask for your patience.  I cannot make a ruling tonight."

"Coward," said one of Wasuya's two, clearly hoping to be overheard.

"What delays your judgment, honorable elder?"  The main Arbiter's smile didn't reach his eyes.

"Before we arrived in Seons'e, I promised to grant this man a last request.  He asked to be allowed to address the people.  Let everyone be assembled tomorrow morning so he can speak to them, and after that I will do what is right."

"So shall it be.  We will expect to see you on the fields below Seons'e tomorrow morning at sunrise."  The Arbiter took his wand back, struck the table once, and it was done.

* * *

For a long time, Yasuo didn't think Issaku would even speak to him.

In the moonlight, their group had been moved to one of the nicer vacant houses.  The carriage had already been parked in the stable, and there was food prepared for them, but no one was eating except the horses.

Yasuo had taken himself out of the way quickly; he sat on a cushion and drank tea while the elder spoke to his men.  He was sending most of them back to Ginys'e.  Judging by the way the soldiers looked solemn and clasped Issaku's forearm, it was clear they didn't expect to see him again.

 _Singled out, with a target on his back, for the crime of embarrassing the Arbiters_.

An hour later, all but two drove off in the carriage.  The pair who remained had adamantly refused to leave, despite a rather impressive series of warnings, insults, pleading, and threats; now they sat at the table while Issaku served them with the expression of a man who was close to tears.  None of them looked at Yasuo, and he politely averted his eyes from their private pain.

Eventually the soldiers left to watch the doors.  Issaku sank into a chair with a sigh, and Yasuo sat up and waited.

"Well," he said at last.  "I hope you've got a good speech ready."

"Honorable elder..."

"You're sorry?"

He winced at the bitterness in the other man's voice.  "I am.  I didn't see this coming."

There was another sigh.  Issaku closed his eyes.  "Who could?"

"The Arbiters probably decided the outcome before they even got here."

"The Arbiters come out of Navori.  They don't care if the vastaya tear us apart."  The elder laughed without humor.  "Gods."

Yasuo leaned back as well.  "Is this your first time with the whole world out to kill you?"

The laugh that followed was more genuine.  "First time in a while.  Does it get easier?"

"No."  Then he laughed as well.

"What will you do tomorrow?" the elder asked.

He sat up.  Issaku still had his eyes closed.  "Speak to them and wait for the riot to break out."

"I thought you meant to make peace."

"Sometimes peace takes a while to calm down."

The elder didn't answer for long moments.  Just when Yasuo was beginning to wonder if he'd fallen asleep, he said, "You could still run."

"No."

"Run.  Save yourself."

"There was a time to run.  It's over.  There's no way out but through."  He lay back again.  The ceiling was a mural of stars, still brilliant despite age and neglect.  A bit of light from the window made their gilded points shine cold and remote.  "Besides, if I leave, the Arbiters will take it out on you."

The square of moonlight crossed over one star and started on the next one before either of them spoke again. 

"I truly am sorry," Yasuo said.

"The vastaya and Ionia were going to fight eventually," Issaku said as if to himself.  "But I never wanted it to happen on my watch."

"Souma used to say that great elders are made in the forge."

"Souma had a proverb for everything."  The other man was looking up at the ceiling as well. "But he always spoke like a swordsman."

"How would a bowman say it?"

Issaku gave it some thought.  "If you only have one arrow, don't miss."

"One arrow in the right place can win a war."

Out of the darkness came a weary laugh that trailed into a sigh.  "They say the gods love children and fools."

_Yone, is that you?_

"Don't mock fools," he heard himself reply.  "It's the idiots of this world who get anything done."

"How do you mean?"

"I don't know who invented forging.  But someone, somewhere, found a piece of red hot iron and decided to hit it with a hammer.  A wise man would have left it alone.  It took an idiot to try something that no one had ever done before, and because of him, we have swords."

"And whoever invented the bow tied a string to a bent stick to see if it could launch other sticks?"

"It was a dumb thing to try... until it worked."

He was glad he couldn't see Issaku's expression.

"And then a certain man rode right into a family feud and ended up in charge of a city."

"That."  The elder sounded slightly embarrassed.  "Don't picture a white horse and banners.  All I did was tell them how much work being an elder would be.  They decided to drop it on my head instead."  A pause.  "Sort of like the Arbiters, come to think of it."

"But there's a mural in Ginys'e.  Your guards made me walk by it.  I was more dead than alive, but they insisted.  There you are, white horse, banner, everything."

Issaku groaned.  "There's also a song, two plays, a tavern..."

"I'm sure you're a lot more eloquent in the plays."

A snort.  "Where are you going with this argument, o philosopher?"

"Someone has to be the first.  And that someone is always a fool, because wiser men wouldn't try.  If he's lucky, he succeeds, and then all of a sudden he looks wise too.  You want me to run, because staying is foolish.  But if I weren't a fool, I'd never have the nerve..."

The other man didn't respond when Yasuo finally fell silent.

"I'm not mad, good elder."

"I know."  There was a slow sigh.  "I'm just starting to see what you mean about the forge."

Before he could respond, he heard Issaku stand up.  He walked a few steps away and searched for something in the dark.  A moment later, a long wrapped parcel landed in Yasuo's lap.

"Here.  No man should die naked."

It was his blade, refitted with hilt and handle.  It wasn't quite the old swordmaker's masterwork, but it fit together as it should, and the balance was perfect.  He suddenly found it hard to breathe.

"Why...?"

"Every man has his moment.  Who am I to deny you yours?  Go forth and be a proud fool." 

He felt tears burn in the corners of his eyes.  "Thank you."

A hand touched the top of his head.  "I wish we had met in a different time and place, _u'fair_.  In another life, we could have been friends."

 _Little brother_... 

"We still could, good elder.  Have faith in me."

"I will."  He laughed, bitterly.  "What choice do I have?"

* * *

On the gently sloping hill below Seons'e, the Ionians and vastaya had assembled in three rough wedges to form a semicircle.  They loomed overhead like inevitability; they murmured like the tide.

_Who but an idiot would think he can turn them?_

Issaku stood between his loyal men.  He held his bow in one hand and the Arbiter's wand in the other.  All three of them were watching the treetops on the eastern hills for the first rays of the sun.  Yasuo continued to scan the crowd. 

The leaders stood in front of their respective factions; Wasuya had apparently lost some followers in the night, but he still commanded the largest group.  Some of their faces were familiar; former students of the sword school, neighbors, childhood friends; Ionians whose names and stories he knew.

Xayah and Rakan stood with the rebels.  They flew the star-mark flag, but there was discomfort in her posture.  Had she been interviewing her fellows?  Had she learned more about Khurshi-de than she wanted to know?  Had she seen the bones just south of where he was standing?

The vastayan elder stood with his people behind him and a flock of children in front.  He thought he recognized some of them from Seons'e.  Gili and Vaska had pushed their way to the front.  He couldn't see the madwoman.

"It's time," said Issaku quietly.  The wand picked up his words; the crowd rustled to expectant stillness.

"Let's go, my brother," replied one of his men.  "Show them how the men of Ginys'e die."

 _Nothing looks wise until it works_.

"Vastayan neighbors and my fellow Ionians," Issaku began.  He didn't raise his voice; he didn't need to.  "I am Issaku, elder of Ginys'e, and you are called to witness the judgment and sentencing of Yasuo of Seons'e."

He gave a brief account of the Arbitration from the previous day.  "The three parties who asked for custody were all denied.  And so this task has fallen to me.  As I promised, I am here at sunrise to do what is right."

The elder paused and took a deep breath.  "Yasuo of Seons'e, for your crimes against Ionia and Ionian blood, I pronounce you guilty, and I sentence you to execution by my own hand."

No one seemed to expect the wail that swept the crowd, starting at the east among 'his' vastaya.  While some among the _astenai_ and the Ionians cheered, most were either silent or crying out in denial, anger, horror...

Yasuo looked back -- and saw the face of a man who was watching his city burn.

"As is custom, the condemned may now say a few words," Issaku continued, somehow holding his voice steady.  "Come and confess your crimes, so that your soul may depart in peace."

"Thank you, good elder," he said, just before he took the wand that would send his words to the crowd.  "Trust me."

But when he actually had the rod in hand, fear gripped him.  The field became a dizzying blur.  The crowd was a swaying mass with no face, just a bellowing voice and a low, rumbling rage.

He closed his eyes, tried to feel the earth under his feet as Taliyah had taught him.  The wind rattled the dry trees.  He opened his eyes again to see a few autumn leaves settling on the grass.

_Walk with me, Yone.  This is for us._

A handful of maple keys spun past.  He felt his trembling hands relax.  His head cleared, and he smiled.

_Only a fool..._

"Fellow Ionians and noble vastaya, many of you know my story.  My master and teacher was the great Souma of Seons'e, and I was honored to stand by his side, but I failed him.  I left him unguarded for a single night, and an assassin took his life.  I have spent many years searching for that assassin and the one who hired him.  I have taken many Ionian lives rather than give up the hunt.  I always knew that one day I would pay for them with my own blood, and there were times when I longed for that day."

When he paused for breath, he could feel Gili and Vaska staring from the crowd, frightened that he would stop there.

"Let it be known, I kept my promise.  Elder Souma was murdered by Khurshi-de of the _astenai_ , of vastaya, and he did it at the will of Elder Wasuya of Canes'e.  I killed Khurshi with my own hand, and good Elder Issaku has exposed Wasuya's guilt.  Nothing prevents me from reaching the end of my journey and joining my brother at last, except..."

He'd never had a crowd hang on his every word before.  It was more than a little intoxicating.

"...except that I have learned of one more thing that I must do.  As much as Ionians honor the law, debt obligation is over all, even a sentence of death.  And my family owes a debt that has never been paid."

He walked a few steps toward the Ionians, looking for familiar faces.  "Eto.  Fuujin.  Sho.  Porah.  Come forward."  Without looking to see if they would obey, he turned back to the main crowd.  "When I was growing up, my brother and I often heard a fireside tale about a hunter and a _krescherei_.  We were told it was the story of our family line, and it goes like this.  Once, in the old days, there was a hunter in the fields..."

He tried to watch the crowd, but in his mind he was back at the family fire.  His voice fell into the cadences his mother had used, and he gestured with his hands the way she had, and raised and lowered his voice for the _krescherei_ and her hunter.  Yone's spirit seemed to hover near, and he sensed his brother's familiar disapproval.

_I agree.  I will make it right, if they'll let me._

The four Ionians he had named stood uneasily in front of Wasuya's group.  "All of you have heard that story before," he said to them.  "See if you recognize it now.  An Ionian hunter met a _mataya-ke_ of vastaya.  While she was vulnerable, he forced her to submit to him.  Then he made her give him the resulting son.  Then he did it a second time and stole her second son.  When he attempted it a third time, she killed the baby rather than hand it over to him.  For her act of defiance he attacked her and left her crippled or dead.  That is what really happened."

He looked at the rebel crowd and saw the truth of what he said in their faces.  Grief.  Anger.  Resentment.  All at once, he knew he was right, and he put more energy into his words.

"My family owes its existence to that  _mataya-ke_.  We come from her and her stolen sons.  When I was a child, I never saw how unjust it was.  I was an unplanned bastard, my father's whim and my mother's mistake.  I loved to hear that I actually came from the wind and the birds.  But now I see the whole truth of it.  And I weep."

"'But it's just a story,' you may say.  No, I'm afraid it isn't.  It truly happened, and I can prove it."  He paused for a moment to draw the bamboo tube from his belt.  "Come.  See the shame of my family's guilt.  See the bond of a debt that has never been repaid."

The _krescherei_ primary feather, longer than any natural bird's, was faded and a little bug-eaten, but it shone in the early sunlight.  He held it high over his head, and a rustle passed through the vastaya.

"All things come from the vastaya.  That's what we say in Seons'e.  All things come from the vastaya... because we stole them.  And all of us have stories that are poetic versions of the ugly truth."  He turned to his fellows.  "Fuujin, your ancestor was a mermaid whose coat of scales was stolen on the seashore.  Sho, your great-grandmother became pregnant after she dreamed of a swan.  Porah, you come from a baby found huddling with a _kalemon_  calf.  Eto, for years you carried a horn that you said your ancestor Seod won when he fought a _kii'en_ for his bride." 

He looked at the larger group of Ionians.  "Do you not see the true story behind the veil of legend?  Is it not clear to you now that Ionians carry stolen vastayan blood?"

He walked over to Xayah and handed her the feather.  "It's time to do what is right.  I will pay my family debt.  I will give back what we have taken from you."

He backed up a few steps and waited for the response.  She stared at the feather for long heartbeats, the golden Rakan looking over her shoulder.

"What are you offering?" she asked without raising her eyelids.

"Children.  Two children of my body, to replace what my forefather stole."

Her glare was sudden and shocking.  "How dare you?!  Do you think I want your blood, Ionian?  Or your mongrel children?"

"Don't call them mongrels."  He wasn't sure why the word stung so much.  "You came from men and gods."

"Whatever they are, we don't want them," she snapped.  "Add more human to the mix and our magic will fade even more."

 _Because it's working so well the way you're doing it_.  "Look over there."  He pointed at the children in the other group of vastayans.  "How long have the vastaya held Seons'e?  Six years?  Seven?  Look at all their children."

She wasn't finished.  "Yeah.  Look at all the half-breeds."

"No.  Stop pretending that Ionians are the root of all your problems.  Ionians have vastayan blood.  And when we intermarried with you and brought those lost lines back in, the vastaya had children again.  Many, many vastayan children.  All we're offering is what you say you want -- the survival of your race.  Our race.  But if you drive us all off 'your' lands, you'll only grow smaller and smaller until you finally die."

"I don't believe you.  Sanshe was full of _mataya-ki_.  Ionians had nothing to do with it.  And anyway, no one is going to take your offer."  She gestured behind her.  "Vastayan women are proud.  Find one of them willing to pay _your_ debt and bear _your_ children."

Yasuo put the wand down on the grass.  "I am offering two children _of my body_ ," he said in Old Ionian.  "You know what that means."

Her eyes burned even hotter.  " _Do not presume_ -"

"Do you think I chose this?!" 

"You are not-  You cannot-"

He picked up the wand again and turned to the 'friendly' camp.  "Good elder of the vastaya, I ask you to confirm the truth of what I say.  The _krescherei_ 's heritage in my family was in two parts.  The wind, which I always thought was my gift.  The image of the Maker, which I always considered my curse."  He forced the next words out of his mouth.  "My body was made to bear children, not sire them."

The Ionians gasped and started whispering.  His face grew hot at what little he could overhear, but didn't let himself drop his eyes.

"Xayah-otsa, it is true," the long-bearded elder shouted.  "Ionian though he may look, he is  _mataya-ke_."

Her sigh was a growl.  "Rakan..."

"Only one way to know."

When the vastayan approached him, Yasuo didn't realize immediately what he meant to do.  He had a fleeting thought that the man was so much taller than he looked, and then...

Golden warmth enveloped him.  He melted. 

He sagged into the man's embrace without a trace of fear or shame.  Over his head, the muted words barely meant anything to him: "Yeah.  There's no doubt."

Xayah said something blistering in vastayan. 

A hand tilted his chin up; Rakan's face was a blur.  "He's pretty far gone.  Guess the humans didn't know what to do with him."

"Let go," Yasuo said weakly.  He could feel his need rising, its heat boiling away the last remnants of his control.

 _Not yet.  Not now.  Please_...

When he finally stumbled away, strong hands caught him.  Elder Issaku must have bolted down the field to grab his left arm, and the vastayan elder was supporting him on the right.  There was some sort of leafy plant being pressed to his face; the scent made his nose itch, but the golden haze fled as if offended, and his head started to clear.

"That's it.  More deep breaths."

He tried to meet the vastayan's eyes, but he still couldn't focus.  "Good elder... your _tella-ki_..."

"Shhh.  They will be ready for you.  Just breathe."

"Are you all right?"  That was from Issaku.

 "I need a moment."  Yasuo waved the Arbiter's rod in the direction of his voice.  "Take this.  Say something foolish."

The elder of Ginys'e walked back to the center of the open space with the golden wand in one hand and his bow over his arm.  "Fellow Ionians, I am torn.  Yasuo of Seons'e has taken Ionian lives, and the penalty must be death.  Law and honor demand it, so that their deaths will not be held cheap.  But Yasuo of Seons'e had also claimed a family debt that cannot be repaid unless he lives.  He is, as far as I know, the last of his line.  His brother is dead; his mother has vanished; his father is unnamed.  If he does not pay the debt, it will never be paid."

Issaku took a deep breath.  "Be it known, this man is a fool."  There was scattered laughter among the crowd, but the elder was not smiling.  "He is a fool to bring up a debt that the owed party has never claimed; a bigger fool to remind them when even they had forgotten.  I do not understand how or why he has promised to bear children like a woman.  Such things are shameful for a man."

When he paused again, the crowd again went silent.  "And yet he is the wisest and most honorable of us all.  If he had not spoken, all of Ionia would live in dishonor, and the chance for peace with our vastayan brothers would be gone."

"Therefore, I am revising my judgment.  It is in two parts.  Yasuo of Seons'e, come forward."

"Run.  We will hide you," whispered the vastayan elder.

"No.  I trust him."  He fought a sudden urge to giggle.  "This is his moment too."

Issaku took an arrow from his quiver.  He snapped it in his hands and held up the pieces.  "From now until you have paid your debt, whenever that might be, your execution is stayed."  He handed the pieces to Yasuo.  "On your honor, swear that you will return to Ginys'e once you have given two children to vastaya."

"I so swear."  He stumbled over the words.  "I swear on my honor and my blade."

The elder wore his blank mask.  "Your sword, if you please."

For the second time, he untied the rope belt and handed his treasure over to Issaku, who turned and gave it to one of his men.  "Now hear the remainder of my judgment."

This time he approached the vastayan rebels.  "What this man has proposed is not a breeding program or a cold-blooded bartering of children.  What he proposes is an alliance marriage beween Ionia and vastaya.  Let there be no more 'my children' and 'your children' but 'our children.'  Seons'e has shown us what a happy household this can be.  As elder of Ginys'e, can I do any less with my own people and my own blood?"  He gestured to Rakan.  "I have always heard a story that my family line descends from an archer and an owl.  Come.  Test me and see if I also am of vastaya."

Yasuo followed, curious.  Rakan approached the man, who watched him warily.

"Well?" Xayah asked.

" _Tella-ke_ , though not a strong one," he replied in vastayan.

"You are," Yasuo said before one of the two could give a less tactful translation.

"Then hear me.  I have not yet taken a wife.  I hereby vow that I will marry a woman of vastaya, if -- and only if -- one will have me.  And she will rule at my side, and her children will have a claim to Ginys'e after me."

A pale woman with the look of a deer about her was leaning forward intently.

 _I believe at least one of them will take you up on that_.

The Ionian elder stepped back to address the crowd.  "Further, I vow that all of Ginys'e who are of the blood will acknowledge their debt to vastaya or find a less honorable place to live."  He gave a pointed glance to the left.  "Perhaps Canes'e."

There was subdued grumbling in the crowd, but the edge had softened.  Yasuo felt his arms relax.

_Is this it?  Is it over?_

"This concludes my judgment.  Yasuo of Seons'e, you are free to g-"

_"Die, murderer!"_

The stag-horned man burst through the _astenai_.  There were two long knives in his hands and no sanity in his eyes.  Yasuo went for his sword -- and froze in panic when he realized he had n-

_-twip-_

_-thuk-_

Issaku's arrow protruded obscenely from the man's left eye.  He scrabbled at it with blood-slick fingers for an eternal second; his head fell forward; his body crumpled, toppled, fell.  Bits of dirt and turf clung to his antlers when he rolled to a halt, his remaining eye reflecting the morning sun.

From the astenai group came a scream.  It was a woman's cry, white-hot with something beyond rage.  Xayah's hand flashed.  One of Issaku's men shouldered his elder out of the way -- and was rewarded with two shining purple feathers high in his chest.  He sank to his knees, staring.

Issaku cried his name, and he and the other man quickly put their arms around his back.

Yasuo thought he was the only one to notice how, immediately afterward, Xayah dropped her eyes and reached for Rakan's steadying grip.

The stricken man was gasping.  Blood showed at the corner of his mouth.  The feathers had missed his heart, but there was no doubt they had pierced his lungs or cut a major artery. 

_Dead in minutes, not seconds.  Still dead._

He picked up the golden wand.  "Vaska.  Come quickly."

The vastayan child was faster than he would have believed.  "Yasu-aki...?"

"Where is your crystal?  I need it."

"It... it's here..."  The little vastayan saw the dying man and backed up a step.

"Do not hesitate."  Yasuo restrained himself from simply ripping it from Vaska's neck.  "Give it to them."

Vaska couldn't look him in the eye.  "But... he's Ionian."

"He is your brother.  He's dying."

"Ionians... hurt us..."  He folded both hands protectively over his chest.

_Gods.  How much did he hear from those poor children?_

"Turn around," he said.  "Look.  That man is the last one who hurt you.  He was vastayan, and he's dead.  He was killed by an Ionian."

The child started trembling.

"Your honor is washed clean.  You have nothing left to avenge.  Help this man."

Issaku was gripping his guard's wrist and speaking in urgent whispers.  "...told you to run, you bastard, you should have run..."

"Help him, Vaska.  Don't let them suffer because of you."

With a sound that was close to a whimper, Vaska dragged the chain off his neck and handed it to Yasuo.  He pressed it to the injured man's chest and waited as his breathing began to steady and the horrible sound of blood in his lungs faded. 

In that moment, he knew it was time to go.  His ties to this situation were weakening; the demands of his body were taking over at last.

He took the wand in one hand, Vaska's hand in the other, and walked out into the open.  A figure ran to meet him -- Gili, he belatedly realized.  "The valley next to this is called Eritu Dono'e," he said.  "The Valley of Death.  If we fight now, this valley will put that one to shame.  There will be life for a life until everyone is dead and only the _xuei_  are happy.  Or we can realize that we are sharing one house because we are brothers, and we can be brothers because we share one house."  He picked up Vaska.  "I am going to vastaya with my children.  The rest of you, do as you will."

The wand made no sound when it landed in the grass.  Yasuo reached for Gili's hand and let the boy lead him away.  His knees were weakening; his eyes were growing dim.

"Come," the elder said, putting an arm around him.  "You've done enough for now.  Come away with us."

Behind them, as he'd feared, peace broke out.  He didn't turn his head.  He tried not to think about Issaku.  And he tried not to remember what he'd just promised.

_The coin of my body and blood... it buys so much but it spends so dear..._


	10. Chapter 10

\--Part Two--

 

He was half passenger and half cargo during the journey back to vastaya.  He didn't know their destination, and he was slipping past the point of caring.

When he lost the ability to walk, they put him in a cart; inside was a wooden box that held tents, but as soon as he discovered it, it held Yasuo.  He lay curled inside, listening to the rhythm of his own heartbeat over the creak and jolt of the wheels.

He was awash in need.  Contrarily, he was light-headed but sober; an overtired person too jittery to sleep, a starving man sickened by the thought of food.  For hours he told himself that he'd been a fool, that he was past the worst of it, that he'd bargained in bad faith and made a promise he couldn't keep.  He repeated in his mind the moment when he'd told all of Ionia that his body could bear children, and he told himself that the heat in his face was a flush of shame.

He didn't think he slept, but when they unloaded him (box and all), he had no idea how they'd picked him up unawares.

The vastayan village was a blur in his fogged senses; he could hear people talking about him but no one attempted to speak to him.  He was suddenly engulfed in his own personal night; it took a very long time to realize that they'd gone into a cave.  It was a vastayan bathing grotto, judging by the sound of water.  There was no telling whether they'd found the place like this, dug it out themselves, or convinced the earth to reshape itself for their benefit -- they were vastaya; it could have been all three.

He understood that one takes off one's clothes before going into a bath.  He remembered that much.  He could have done without the audience, or the abundance of helping hands.  He didn't think he needed two other people to help him get into the water.  And he was truly annoyed when he ducked his head under and was immediately 'rescued' by strong hands pulling on his hair.

"Let go.  I'm not going to drown myself."  But they blinked at him like he'd spoken in Noxian.

At some point they left him alone to soak.  His mind began to clear, and he started to take an interest in his surroundings.  The cave ceiling rose far overhead, with rock fangs and columns in twisted patterns.  Gradually he realized that there was frost on the rocks, and the water had a thin skin of ice.  His bare shoulders were steaming.  The vastayans around him were either bundled up or standing near a fire.

"Huh..."

The water didn't even feel cold to him.

 _This body of mine_...

Sooner than he would have liked, they motioned for him to get out.  He let them wrap a robe around him and lead him to the cave entrance, where he finally saw a familiar face.  The vastayan elder had five men behind him, glowing in the sunset; all tall, all strong.

"It's finally time, my child," the elder said.  "Choose your mate."

Knowing what he knew -- what was about to happen between himself and one of these men -- he almost couldn't meet their eyes.  When he did, he saw a single-minded focus that was both frightening and flattering.  No one, not even the men who came at him with death in their smiles, had fixed on him the way these _tella-ki_ did.

"Pick the one who most appeals to you.  Your instincts will be right."

There was only one.  He had been built on a _kalemon_ ; his face had two black stripes running to either side of his peaked hairline, where the horns stood up like ornaments.  His eyes were larger than usual, and they gleamed so intensely that his whole body seemed darker by comparison.

He took a step forward.  The man's offered hand had black fingernails.  His touch was shockingly hot, but his eyes would not let Yasuo pull away.  It reminded him of something.... someone had once tried to hold him with a gaze like this.  But their gold color was all he could see, and that gold was rapidly expanding to become his entire world.

When the elder broke the spell, Yasuo found that he was short of breath.  Before he could do or say more, his handlers surrounded him again and whisked him back into the caves.

Bathing now; they washed his hair and braided it against his scalp; they scrubbed his hands in a ritualistic way, washing each finger separately.  They painted something on his face in scented oils.  Their touches were frequently skin on skin, but they didn't affect him; he was in another of those light-headed moments, watching as if it were happening to someone else.

_Why this nonsense?  I saw his eyes.  He doesn't care what my hair looks like._

They didn't have to tell him what to do with the soft rag they handed him.  He grimaced and looked down at himself.  He hadn't had a proper erection since this terrible... what did the vastaya call it?  Spring lust?  Spring madness?... had set in.  His _iktil_ was bent like a bean, dark pink and a bit tender to the touch.  He washed it quickly, surprised that it was the only part of him that seemed to register cold.  Behind it hung a useless sack of flesh holding balls like two unripe plums; small, hot, and hard.

_Do these still work?_

He sighed and put a foot up on a rock.  His legs were squared off, utilitarian, each marked with a dozen white scars; he certainly didn't find them appealing.  There was no softness anywhere, not even behind his knee or under his thigh.  He leaned forward a bit more, reached between -- and just as he found the square inch of flesh that actually enjoyed the touch, need struck again with no warning.  His knees buckled and he nearly pitched headfirst into the spring.  Arms caught him, and he tried to speak but could only groan.  His face burned.

_"If you suppress your appetite..."_

There was no more ritual then; no formalities; no words.  He was half led, half carried to a dark room and helped to lie facedown on a padded platform.  He had a final moment of clarity to realize how vulnerable he was, and then the man he had chosen came into the room, and his sexual presence flooded his senses and nothing was real but need.

_"...how much worse is your hunger for being denied?"_

The man stood at his head.  Yasuo would have begged if he could speak; groveled at his ankles if he could move.  But all he could do was cling to the table with arms and legs.  Hot emptiness howled in his body, a yawning hole was pulling bits of him away and down, down, down...

The man was naked.  His jutting member had a scent; a little like damp logs, a little like a horse's mane, but mostly spicy and indefinable.  It made Yasuo's mouth water.  He reached for it with his tongue but got only a taste before the other chuckled and moved away.

Hands touched the small of his back.  He arched in reflex.  The warmth of a man's leg rested against the inside of his thigh.  When hands came down to cup his hips, he finally made a sound, something halfway between pleading and protest.  The hands moved in response; they spread warm over his backside, thumbs seeking the cleft and pulling his cheeks apart.  He made another sound.

_...there... it's going to be there..._

He had never, in his deepest nightmares...

Those thumbs pressed inward; a piercing heat startled him.

...imagined that he would feel anyone's touch there...

The blunt tip of a single thumb had found his opening.  It was slack, and when that tip gently circled its rim, he could offer only the slightest twitch in response.  It didn't deter the intruder.  He pushed in deeper, moving in slow but widening circles, and the wet sound that accompanied this made his face burn.

...let alone a man's...

Another intruder.  Both thumbs now.  The fingers spread over his hips, eight points digging in for leverage as those thumbs spread him open.  He couldn't ignore the wet feeling now; this mouth was also watering, and when the man released him and wiped his thumbs off on the small of Yasuo's back, they left cold streaks.  Whatever the liquid was, it was thin and slick; it began to trickle between his legs, and it filled him with a dim kind of shame.

The thighs against his tensed; the fingers hooked themselves over his hipbones, and then came the indescribable feeling of being entered.  There was no warning, no words, not even a grunt.  He cried out despite himself.  The man threw more weight onto him as his legs kicked involuntarily; his muscles tightened to force him out.  But he couldn't dislodge him or even slow him down.  In and in, further and deeper; as much as his weeping _mataya-ke_ flesh seemed to want this, there was pain, slow and stretching, and anxiety stole his breath.  It was too much, too far; in the next second or two, he knew, he would feel something tear.

An instant before he lost himself to panic, he realized the man had stopped.  His hands were hot on the small of Yasuo's back, and there was a tremor running down his braced arms.  The pain surged and ebbed as his insides kept spasming.  He flinched when tiny drops of fire landed on his back.

Sweat.

The man was cursing in a steady stream.  "You're killing me," he said in a breathless gasp.

"Ah...  I..."

_I'm killing you?!_

The _tella-ke_ withdrew.  It hurt coming out too, and the sudden slack in his muscles was a relief and a disappointment.  Then he felt the thumbs again.  They pulled on the tight ring of his entrance, and the slick sounds left no doubt that he was wet, wet like a woman preparing to enjoy a man.  In the instant before the haze of need could take over again, he saw himself, naked and laid out on a mushroom-shaped table with another man up to his knuckles in his ass.

Curse the vastaya!

"You're... hot... " the man muttered.

With no more ceremony than he had the first time, he slid back in.  It was easier to take now that Yasuo had some idea what to expect.  The pain even had a little pleasure mixed in; like scratching an itch, there was a lingering after-burn that was... satisfying.

_I'll be okay if it doesn't get worse than this._

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  He tried to let his muscles go slack.

_Relax.  Relax.  He knows what he's doing.  He's not going to hurt you..._

"Ah.... gods...." gritted the man behind him.  "Burns..."

More droplets hit his skin as Yasuo and the other man adjusted to each other.  He shifted a little, just to see how it would feel.  The stretchy burn moved; intrigued, his hips began to rotate on their own, slowly at first.  The man groaned, but Yasuo kept moving, chasing the hint of pleasure in the pain.  He got up on his elbows and pushed back; that hurt too, but his instincts told him to keep going.  He pressed himself onto the _tella-ke_ , wickedly amused by his constant swearing, and he didn't let himself stop until the back of his leg touched the other man's thigh.

_Now what?_

With another string of curses, the man backed out again.  Yasuo heard water running, and splashing, and the hands that took his hips a few minutes later felt cold.  He braced himself for intrusion, but nothing happened; he looked over his shoulder and saw the man visibly trying to work up his courage.

_Am I that dangerous?_

"You're... burning..." he said.

The entry this time felt like an act of heroism; he went almost to the hilt in a single stroke, and Yasuo's arms failed him.  He fell on his face, blinded with impact -- and then...

A burst of pressure that was more than his body could bear -- or understand -- and before he could properly react to that, a release and a sudden feeling of warmth that loosened all his joints.  He sagged facedown on the platform, beyond thought, just an awareness of fullness, that something was swelled up inside of him and filling the terrible hollow of his need.  A groan dragged itself out of his throat.

"Like that, huh?" panted the man on top of him.

He did.  He felt pulses now, not much more than flutters, and even those tiny throbs were pleasant.  But more than that, a coolness was spreading through his body, soothing and washing away the fever he'd lived with for so long.

For so... long...

So he lay, staring at one of his own forearms, breathing and resting and content to be still, surprised at how long the man was lasting but hoping it would never end...

He thought he might have drifted off again.  He'd lost all sense of time.  When the man withdrew at last, there was a twinge that half-woke him, but he didn't move, and he certainly didn't lift his head to watch him go.  It was beyond him to give any thought to what had just happened or what it might mean.  All he knew was that his body was -- if only for the moment -- satisfied.

* * *

He woke up eventually, still lying where he'd been put.  He was thirsty enough to drink the entire bathing pool but too limp to stand.  One of the people who seemed to be attending him helped him sit up (it hurt) and the cup she offered was faintly sweet, slightly salty, and very cold.  He drank it quickly enough to get a headache and eagerly gulped down more.

They went down to the bathing grotto again.  He finally understood the wisdom of his braided hair; it would have been a matted mess by now if it weren't tied down.  The water was starting to feel cold to him now, but he welcomed the chill.  He rolled onto his back and floated, looking at the ceiling and not-thinking.

At some point, he got out of his own accord.  The attendants didn't give him any direction, so he went back into the room with the platform, curled up in a corner and went back to sleep.  He woke to find the _tella-ke_ he'd chosen lifting him from the floor; his awakened need crowded out any resentment.  He leaned on the table and braced with his arms; his head dropped below his shoulder blades and he groaned without shame as the man came surging in, stretching flesh that wasn't used to this kind of treatment but was oh so willing to embrace him.  There was no swearing this time, and no sudden burst of pain when the man--

_how is that possible?_

\--expanded inside him.

Not that he was arguing.  He felt their bodies lock together and the waves of cold soothed him again; he nearly cried with relief.  When his legs started to tremble, arms tightened around him and helped him find the padded surface.  As before, he lost track of time.  He knew when the _tella-ke_ pulled out again, and he knew when he was wrapped up in a blanket and put back on the floor, but he didn't know if it had happened just after the mating or much later.  Nor did he care.  All he knew was that he was snug and safe, and when he came back to consciousness and needed something to drink, someone was at his side.

He was in the cave four days and five nights, not that he knew that until much later.  He seemed to spend most of his time sleeping; his waking moments were occupied with mating, bathing, or drinking more of the potion his handlers offered.  They didn't offer him solid food, but he wouldn't have wanted it anyway.  He gradually lost himself with the loss of his sense of time; he forgot about the situation he'd left and the promise he'd made.  He wasn't even certain of his own name.  The only thing he was sure of was that his body was growing cooler and cooler; he started to _need_ a blanket once the sexual rush faded.  Then he needed two.  Then the bathing pool was too cold to soak in, and finally too cold to touch.

Finally, the moment came when he thought he must have gone out of heat.  He was curled in a pile of blankets, feeling loose-jointed and content, and his head was clear for the first time in a very long while.

_So that's mating._

It hadn't been so bad, he mused.  The  _tella-ke_  had been fairly... economical, doing the deed and getting gone.  There had been no caressing, no embracing, very few words exchanged, and no eye contact.  And he couldn't honestly say he'd felt true pleasure in the deed; the man had never even touched his  _iktil_.  But it had been enjoyable in its own way, and now all that remained-

He was surprised by the sound of footsteps.  His  _tella-ke_ stood over him in silence.  The focus in his expression was not far off the hungry look he'd worn when they first met.  He reached down and pulled Yasuo to his feet, stripping the blanket off in the same motion.  

_He wants to go again?_

Strong arms hoisted him onto the platform.  Elbows locked under his knees and pushed his thighs back. 

"What are you doing?"

"Getting you bred."

He was facing the man for the first time.  The  _kalemon_  had bent him almost double and was holding him with his knees nearly touching his own shoulders.  It wasn't the best position for a conversation, but he was tired of being handled like a patient or a broodmare. 

"What have we been doing?"

"Mating.  Not the same thing."

Anger slowly rose.  "You were having fun with me?"

"Taking you out of heat."  The man pressed him harder into the platform.  "You were too hot to catch."

"You seemed to manage."  Yasuo pushed back, but the man had more leverage.

"Catch.  Conceive.  Breed."

He couldn't free himself.  A shiver began in the pit of his stomach.  It hadn't been that long since being at the mercy of another meant he was about to die.  Yet his body was trembling with a different sort of anticipation, and the part of him that was vastaya whispered sweet promises.  This man was strong and healthy, his _mataya-ke_ instincts observed.  Worthy of him, worthy to have him...

"I couldn't get pregnant?"  He wanted to laugh at the sound of his own words.

"Not then."

"Now I can?"

With his body covered and held in place, the  _tella-ke_  freed a hand to touch his neglected  _iktil_.  It still wasn't erect, but it was hard and pulsing to the rhythm of his heartbeat.  The touch burned hot -- almost to the point of feeling cold -- and then resolved into a warm feeling at the base of his spine.  He gasped.

_He's trying to..._

Those fingers closed on his entire length.  That alone nearly made him writhe, but when he squeezed, Yasuo fell back and all the breath rushed out of his lungs.  The minor annoyance of sweat on his forehead caught his attention just briefly; it cooled on his skin as his head rolled back and forth.  His spine was bending; his body reached upward from the navel.  He tried to keep quiet, but that hand continued to torture him until he moaned.  The strokes blended pleasure and pain so thoroughly that he couldn't tell them apart.  Fear and pain and desire turned his mind into a trembling mess; his body took over, thrusting into that hand, demanding more.

_Curse the vastaya..._

The moment he'd first felt the craving, he'd known this would happen.  If he didn't die first, his treasonous body would eventually get its way.  It would bring him to where he was now, squirming under a man, blushing, panting without shame, his hips rolling as much as the other man’s weight would allow.  It could have been the beautiful man on Targon, it could have been the goat-man in the icy north.  It very nearly was the _bosin_ in the woods near Seons’e, but now it was a _kalemon_ who bent him double, his own _iktil_  brushing Yasuo’s thigh.  He wanted more.  He couldn't be certain of much at this point, but he knew he wanted this, and wanted more.

When the  _tella-ke_  backed off, he whined, low in his throat like a dying animal, but those fingers strayed to his entrance, teased the opening, and then seized him again with his own slick wetness to soothe the burn.... and he lost it.  His breath came out in an explosion, and he twisted on the platform so violently that the man had to throw most of his weight over him to hold him down.

_He... is strong..._

"Just... let..." he said, or hoped he said; he was gasping and not speaking.

"Don't."  Pleasure-pain hit an unbearable high -- he shrieked something and went limp, specks of white floating in his darkened vision, and his body pulsed pain-hot, pain-hot, pain-hot, over and over; there was no respite, just the hammer-blows of his flesh trying to beat itself to death.

He almost didn’t feel it when the man pushed inside of him.  He was already lost in the heat-pain-pulses; the man was already mostly on top of him.  But when they locked together, there was a beautiful instant of clarity –- like a lightning flash -– and a moment of stillness before the waves of pleasure rolled again, over and over, still intense but buffered now, breaking on the other man’s body, and his aloof _kalemon_ clung to him, riding out the storm with him, his breath sobbing at Yasuo’s ear.

It lasted for what seemed like hours.  The initial rush eventually slowed and faded to a peaceful rhythm, still pleasant but more soothing, and when it coasted to stillness and his thoughts returned, he found he still didn’t want to move.  Nor did the man on top of him, apparently; he remained like a living blanket, and Yasuo was glad of his warmth.  Now that the blood rush was over, he was colder than ever before.

With the groan of a waking man, the _kalemon_  eventually pulled out and stood up.  He shook his entire body, rubbed his arms, and left without a word.  For once, Yasuo wished the man had stayed; the chill of the room made his hands ache, but he had no strength to get off the table.  He endured it for a while, but his annoyance, once roused, wouldn't be ignored.

_Am I going to lie here and shiver, or am I going to do something about this?_

He shoved against the table with all his strength and managed to roll over.  From there, he was able to slide down to all fours and pull himself in the direction of the blankets.

"What are you doing?  You shouldn't be moving."

He looked up.  All he could see were knees.  "C-cold..."

Strong arms hoisted him up to sit on the platform.  "You have to be cold for a while.  I'm sorry."

What ridiculous vastaya rule was this?!

"Here."

The metal at his mouth was a familiar shape.  A flask.  He took a sip -- it was sweet, clear, cold, and the mild burn at the back of his throat quickly spread to warm his whole body.

"No point in telling you to go easy on that?"

None.  He took another long pull before he surrendered the flask.  He could already feel it going to his head.  The _tella-ke_ took a drink and handed it back.

"What is it?"  Talking hurt his throat.

"Vastaya _umai_.  Ice berry wine."  The man laughed.  "And if we succeeded, it's the last you'll get for a while."

They emptied the flask without saying anything more.  He knew the warmth it brought was just an illusion, and he knew he shouldn't be drinking on an empty stomach, but he didn't care.  He wanted sleep.  He wanted forgetfulness.  He wanted to drink away the words he'd just heard.

 _If we succeeded_...

If.

* * *

"If" slowly became his curse.  "If" haunted his nights and his dreams.  The in-between space he inhabited had no path for his feet; he wandered aimlessly.  Gili and Vaska were still with him, but they were the only bright spots in a life that now included a lot of visitors and a lot of waiting.  The relief of being out of heat at last was all but lost in the new anxiety of "if."

Vastayan society had a hierarchy, and _mataya-ki_ , for all they were considered sacred, lived within definite rules and bounds.  They lived in special housing, wore special clothing, even used special pronouns for themselves.  Certain weapons were forbidden to them; other weapons were all but obligatory.  (He was surprised to discover that this included bladed weapons in all forms, though blades on poles were preferred.)  They lived most of their lives confined to a single village, which was not as restrictive as he would have expected.  For one, the local _mataya-ke_ held the roles usually given to the village elder: arbiter, peacekeeper, officiant at rituals, and often midwife.  For two, their judgments were generally respected and never disputed.  They were just, because not even the ones with money or influence could afford to offend the one fertile member of the town; they were impartial, because the _mataya-ke_  always came in from outside and had no family ties to the place; and they were gentle and wise, because their village was _their_ village, and the _mataya-ke_ above all others had a vested interest in its life and happiness.

But there was a significant underside to it all.  _Mataya-ki_ had value only if they were fertile.  Regular heat cycles were no guarantee of a body that could actually catch and bear a child.  And as the goat-like elder had explained, with matter-of-factness softened only slightly by pity, vastayan society couldn't afford to carry dead weight.  He had a year to prove he could conceive; two years to prove he could carry a child to term, before they cast him from the _mataya-ki_ ranks.  If that happened, his only options would be exile or life as a concubine to one of the men.

"What of my promise?" he'd asked, trying to hide his dismay.

"You can try with the women.  Some of them will lie with a male _mataya-ki_ as a fertility charm.  But if you're infertile..."

If.

He was in among doctors almost every day the week after the matings.  Even though most of it was to repair old injuries that had never properly healed, he still had to suffer through their examinations.  By the end of that week, he began to believe he hadn't caught.  By the end of the second week, he was sure.  By the end of the third week, the stirrings of heat began to return, and after a few days he was again facing a semicircle of _tella-ki_.

The _kalemon_ was not with them this time.  This was typical, he was told.   They were giving him the benefit of the doubt, assuming that the first _tella-ke_ had been a poor match for him.  His second mate was a strong one with heavy shoulders and arms the size of Yasuo's legs; he was overpoweringly dominant and he preferred to have his mate securely underneath him when they did the deed.  It awakened the dual thrill of desire and fear the first few times; then it roused his irritation.  He started to push back a little, if only for the sake of his pride.  He couldn't match the other man with strength, but he knew enough of fighting to make him work for it.

The tella-ke seemed amused by this.  Every mating turned into a contest to see how long Yasuo could hold out before getting pinned.  He enjoyed it.  He thought the other man did too.  Both of them had enough control to avoid causing serious injury, but a little pain added spice to the proceedings.

Their last mating, the one where they mixed their seed inside his body, came after nearly an hour of struggle and left bruises on them both.  He couldn't do more than lie still afterward, exhausted, satisfied, and hoping no one would mistake it for an assault.  After a few days -- when he'd healed and recovered -- he sought the man out to apologize.  To his surprise, the  _tella-ke_ invited him into his bed; he accepted, and it was pleasant enough, but without heat compelling them to come together, it was impossible to ignore how awkward the whole thing was.  He just didn't feel anything for the man.  He barely knew him.  When he offered himself again, Yasuo politely refused.

While the next month was full of lessons in  _mataya-ki_ ways, Yasuo kept returning in his mind to the two things he'd learned: vastayan mating could be very different from person to person, and it was probably more satisfying to do it with someone to whom you were genuinely attracted.  But he had been genuinely attracted to both of his mates while in the grip of heat.  He just wasn't interested in them afterward, when the needs of his body no longer overrode his eyes or his mind.

_Maybe the instincts for picking a good sire aren't the same for picking a good partner._

It bothered him, and he wondered why.  He didn't have a future, any more than he'd had before.  He didn't know why every established _mataya-ke_ he'd met had a permanent mate -- sometimes two -- if their duty was to produce offspring for all of vastaya.  But he was starting to long for the matings to have some meaning, and when he knew he wasn't going to conceive off this last round either, he started doing a little shopping.

The third time, he went to the cave with the _tella-ke_ of his choice; someone he had picked before the mating urge swamped his senses.  The man had the intent, furred look of an _osef_ , the miniature predators who hunted banks and streams; he was lithe and graceful and had astonishingly pointy ears.  He was also _profoundly_ experienced.  Yasuo had the basics of the main act down now, but this man taught him the preliminaries that distinguish lovemaking from simple mating; how to receive pleasure and how to give it.  The final act made him see stars; he had no idea how anyone could experience such a height of sensation and not die.  When they parted, he knew bittersweet regret; he wished the man could have stayed.

But when he walked out of that cave on shaky legs, he _knew_.

He didn't know how he knew.  None of the vastayan doctors commented on it.  Gili and Vaska didn't suspect anything different.  And he kept it behind his teeth.  But he knew.

Somewhere in his body was something new.  A new vastayan child to repay the debt his family had incurred so very long ago.

_A new stem so my family tree doesn't end with me.  Someone to replace Yone.  If my body can do this.  If I can actually carry to term._

If...


	11. Chapter 11

The ribbons hung in front of his left ear.  They tickled, but he wore them because they said it was a _mataya-ke_ 's privilege to wear them. Alma-desta wore so many ribbons that they formed a second layer of hair, all neatly divided left and right.

He had no ribbons over his right ear... yet.

"Are you ready, Yasu-akije?" asked the very tall man standing at his right side.

"No ceremony, Beneki.  It doesn't suit you."  He swallowed, took a deep breath, and settled his belly more comfortably on his crossed legs.  He checked to make sure he could reach his vastayan sword.  "The sun is high enough.  Let them in."

And as the group of people who came to seek his judgment filed in, he wondered if the great Alma-naje had ever felt so unqualified.

* * *

Alma-naje -- Lady Alma, or Mother Alma -- had arrived in a sedan chair seven months ago.  The four men who carried her were _tella-ki_ of such stature that his breath came short, but he forgot all about them when he saw her.  Never in his life had he seen anyone look so feminine, so motherly.  She had a pale face covered in narrow lines that somehow improved it, like the creases in pleated silk.  She never once set foot to the ground.  She never had to.  She stepped from the sedan into a chair that the village vastaya rushed to carry, and from there was borne into the local _mataya-ke_ 's residence.

_Can she walk?_

From that moment Alma was the center of village life.  She was a shrine in and of herself, much to the delight of the locals (and the concealed disgust of the resident _mataya-ke_ ), and she took command with the calm authority that comes only from experience. 

And she had come for him.

Well, that was an exaggeration.  She had come for all the new _mataya-ki_ , particularly the ones who had been rescued from Seons'e.  She spent an entire day interviewing them; he waited for his turn with Gili and Vaska ahead of him, wondering what he was in for.

She received him sitting on a pile of cushions, with her four _tella-ki_ standing like pillars around her.  He gave her the full obeisance, palms flat and forehead touching the floor.

"You are a very unexpressed vastayan," she said.

He remained silent, not knowing how to answer.

"You look human.  Where are the marks of your other nature?"

"I wear my _krescherei_ on the inside."  He raised himself to his knees.

She gave him a measuring look.  He held her gaze.  Again, it seemed to him that he had never met anyone so fully _woman_ as this, not even the mad Noxian.

_Why did my thoughts go to her, of all people?_

"You are with child?"

"I think so."  It was only a couple of weeks after the last mating.  He hadn't seen the healers for a few days, and it was too soon to know if he'd go back into heat, but he still _felt_ pregnant.

"This is your first?"

"Yes."

"No features, no marks of honor..."  She tilted her head.  "And a very old beginner.  You are a mystery, little brother."

Again, he wasn't sure what to reply.

One of the _tella-ki_ cleared his throat.  "The lady asked you a question."

He blinked.  None of that had sounded like a question.

"Peace, Beneki.  He was not raised vastayan.  That much is clear."  She smirked rather than smiled.  "But since he obviously has your interest, go ahead."

The tall man took a step forward with such purpose that Yasuo instinctively scrambled to his feet.  He felt the now-familiar surge of a dominant man's sexual presence... but it had no impact now.  It went over him, or through him, and awakened no need.

"Am I passing whatever test you're putting me through?"  He'd been prepared to respect Alma, but he was getting tired of feeling like the one person not in on the joke.

Her eyes were mild.  "Do you feel him?"

"Yes.  Pushing on me."

"Either bred or mated."  The man she'd called Beneki had feathery hair, like the twins, and fingers that seemed to bear an extra joint.  He came closer, and the masculinity of his size/presence/scent was unmistakable... but even with their bodies nearly touching, Yasuo felt no urge to melt into him.  He breathed out slowly, grateful as always to be 'back' to the man he used to be, the man he'd thought was gone forever.

"I sense... two.  Faint, but two."

"Interesting."  Alma made a gesture to the man's back -- a gesture he knew Beneki couldn't see -- and somehow called him to her side.  "But not surprising."

Yasuo had had enough.  "You've had your interview.  I'm leaving."

"You are the one who stood below Sanshe," Alma said.  It wasn't loud, but it got his attention.  "You offered yourself to buy peace."

"I am that fool, yes."

"Foolish, but not wrong.  And you bargained in terms the vastaya understand."

He was getting better at hearing the question in her statements.  "I have been traveling with two of them for a while."

"And you know a form of our language."

"When I was young, it was used in our sword training.  We call it Old Ionian."

"'Old'."  She sat back, smiling faintly.  "You will be interesting to read.  You know much for an Ionian but very little for a vastayan."

"Don't invest in me.  I am not yours to keep."

Her silence was the cloth that hides a statue.  Her eyes were amused.  It was clear she knew something he didn't, or thought she did, and it irritated him.

"I am leaving," he said again.

"Take these before you go."  She reached up to her hair and removed two ribbons.  "Wear them with pride."

He found himself bending his head before he thought to protest.  "Why?"

"For the twins you are carrying."  She clipped the ribbons to the hair above his ear.  "Obviously."

Such was his first encounter with Alma-naje.  In hindsight, he was astonished at how not-astonished he was.  But then, not all life-changing events are obvious.

* * *

It was clear now where his feet had been set.  The _mataya-ke_ road lay before him, and the vastaya seemed determined to see him walk it properly.  He submitted without too much fuss: he knew roads.  You walk to wherever they lead you or you sit down on the verge and die.  Every other time, he had chosen to walk.  This was no different.

Alma-naje organized the lessons, though she didn't personally teach most of them.  _Mataya-ki_ had the privilege to call her Alma-sesa, "my sister Alma," but he didn't feel comfortable saying it.  So he chose Alma-desta, "my older sister," which seemed to please her.  Some days he simply shadowed her, sitting in the square of her four mates and watching what she said and did.  Sometimes he was in with the group who were rescued from Seons'e -- traumatized vastayans who would need time to heal.  Other times he was with beginners like Gili and Vaska.  There were quite a number: Alma-desta's presence was attracting unseasoned  _mataya-ki_ from all over vastaya.  And still other times he was with his peers, if he could be said to have peers; vastaya in various stages of pregnancy.  They were all further along than he was, and all but one was female.

He had quarters in the _mataya-ki_ lodgings now, and a bed he enjoyed without shame.  The same servants who tended the others tended him; they brushed his hair and set his meals and washed his feet at the end of the day.  He felt himself softening under their hands, and he wasn't sure he liked it.  He certainly didn't like learning to wear _mataya-ki_ robes, or wearing his hair the way they styled it, or dealing with those ribbons that were always fluttering in the corner of his eye.

The one set of lessons he might have whole-heartedly enjoyed was language, but even that was tainted.  Beneki had taken it upon himself to "take the monk out of your speech," with no apparent motive besides irritation.  Alma-desta had smiled her vague smile and waved a hand and that was it: an hour with the man every other day was added to his schedule, and of course no one asked him what _he_ thought of it.

That said, while he didn't particularly want to spend more time in Beneki's company, he found it comfortable and familiar that the _tella-ke_ treated him without a shred of reverence.  He was used to people trying to kill him, not bow to him, so dealing with the man's mild contempt was familiar, even comfortable.  He shrugged it off, or returned as good as he got, seeing no need to be polite to someone who didn't particularly like him.  Besides, Beneki taught him more than just language.  After only a week in his company, Yasuo knew the names, habits, and quirks of Alma-desta's other three mates.  He knew that Restalli, the oldest, had replaced her deceased first mate, that he was the father of over half of her many children, and that he was the closest thing she had to a love match.  Eusuke and Eusaka, the twins, had joined them in a moment of whimsy and -- happily -- formed a tight threesome with Restalli after the mating was over.  Multiple 'marriages' were not uncommon with _mataya-ki_ who had served long careers.  Beneki was the youngest and last; his bond with her was only a temporary one.

"Those exist?"

The man snorted.  "Clearly.  I stay with her, I don't go crazy, and sooner or later I meet someone I can take up with."

Half an hour of playing the ignorant Ionian was all it took to learn everything he wanted to know about the vastayan way of pair-bonding.  It was dignity well spent.  Mating bonds, either permanent or temporary, were what kept a _tella-ke_ from living in a state of near-constant rut; what kept a  _mataya-ke_ from being a prisoner of her own body.  Through what Beneki called "husband's choice," she could avoid going into season indefinitely; her will, her mate's will, and her body's will each had a vote, and her body could be overruled. 

So could her mate.

_So could she._

The man looked at his expression.  "That's why you don't bond without trust," he said enigmatically.

"Is this why a _tella-ke_ sits in on some of the lessons?"

"That's Irado, the strongest _tella-ke_ in the village.  He's bonded to all of the rescues, so they won't go over until they want to."

"What does he get out of it?"

"Pride," replied the man as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Yasuo shrugged and changed the subject, but he walked away from that session with Beneki with all his thoughts whirling.

If he could find a mate among the vastaya, someone who didn't want children...

_Don't._

...he could be himself again.  Just Yasuo.  He wouldn't have to live from heat to heat and child to child.

_You owe your life to Issaku's arrow.  Don't._

But hope, once roused, couldn't be silenced.  Nor could the fear that came with it. 

His mind began to play with concepts that were (to him) alien and shocking, like "in a couple of weeks," or "this time next year".  When he guided his own little class of vastaya through the beginnings of sword work, he began to wonder how long it might be before they showed promise.  He reminded himself that it could be a year before any of them gave the signs of being a potential _ventanyi_ , a windblade like himself.  Would he be around to see it?

_Do I care?_

The windblade technique was his inheritance from Elder Souma.  If he couldn't pass it down to someone else, it would be lost.

_My inheritance from the vastaya, too._

Among other things.  He was unavoidably reminded of that every morning lately, when he woke up feeling too queasy to even touch food.

* * *

"What is the vastayan word for 'honor'?" he asked Beneki.

"What is 'honor'?" his tutor replied.

"It's..."  He slowed, wondering how he could explain the one word that had ruled his life.  "A good reputation, but with the idea that your conduct reflects on other people."

"Self-esteem?"

"Other-esteem."  He paused, but Beneki merely looked blank.  "Alma-desta is your mate.  Do you feel ashamed to be her mate?"

A blink of those grey eyes.  "No?"

"No, because she has honor.  She raises you like the tide raises boats.  If she didn't have honor, she would fall and everyone bound to her would be lowered too."

"I see."  He played with the long feather-like extensions on his knuckles.  "What Alma-naje has, we call pride-of-position.  She has a role and she fills it well."

_How vastayan._

"There's that look again."  Beneki smirked.  "You didn't like that answer."

"'Be a good _mataya-ke_.'  That's the answer to every question I've asked."

"Only if you want honor."

 _Damn him_.

"You want honor from the vastaya?"  The man laughed.  "What does it matter to you?  You're on loan."

"Honor is..."  He tried to give it some thought, but it was hard to do with Beneki still grinning at him.  "Honor is the horizon.  Everyone walks toward it."

"Which is a poetic way to say you've never had it yourself."

"No one truly honorable thinks he has honor," Yasuo replied, stung.

"Not a day passes when Alma-naje does not think about her pride-of-position.  She knows she has it.  Why don't you?"

"Because I don't care about that sort of thing."

"Of course.  Which is why you started this conversation."  Beneki leaned back with his hands behind his head.  In softer tones, he said, "I know you've never had honor."

Yasuo did not respond.  The other man shrugged.

"A _krescherei_ egg hatched by _shiirin_ makes a poor _shiire_ , no matter how hard it tries to be one.  It's not the fault of the egg.  It's the fault of the nest."

"I had a brother.  He managed."

Casually: "Do tell."

He gave a clipped version of his story.  He didn't want to tell the man everything, but it seemed disloyal to blame Ionia for how he'd turned out.  He tried to stress that his misfortunes had been his own fault, but Beneki kept interrupting with questions about Yone.

"Older brother?"

"By almost five years."

"Do you think he wanted to die?"

Yasuo looked over.  Beneki was lounging on his side, as idly as if discussing the weather.  "No.  But he was a soldier.  He would never put his life above his duty."

"And it was his duty that made him try to kill you."

"Obviously."

"Hm.  Do you carry something that used to be his?"

His hand strayed to the bag around his neck.  He dropped his fingers at once, but the other man had already noticed.

"Interesting.  What's in there?"

Irritation flared.  "What's it to you?"

He expected a flippant or defensive response, but the other man was sober.  "Don't ask questions you don't want the answer to."

"Don't ask me, then."  He stood up, brushed himself off, and left.

Krescherei _in a_ shiire _nest.  What arrogance.  I failed Ionia.  Ionia didn't fail me._

* * *

There was a string of happy days in the middle of it all.  It was deep winter now, and rainy, but one glorious morning he woke up with an actual appetite for breakfast.  He ate carefully, waiting for nausea to appear, but it never did.

 _We're in it now_ , he thought.  But he was too relieved at feeling 'normal' to be somber for long.  Besides, who could be unhappy with an entire platter of vastayan _iyen_ in front of him?

His energy came back with his appetite.  He was able to demonstrate the sword drills for Gili and Vaska and his handful of other students, not just try to describe them.  The vastayan blade he wore now was not his old masterwork sword, but it was adequate.  He felt the familiar ache in his arms in the evenings and considered it the mark of a day well spent.

Not that he could be moving all the time.  There were classes, there were hours spent observing Alma-desta, there was some medical training.  When his fellow pregnant _mataya-ki_ went into labor, everyone else attended.  Midwifery was not something Ionian men were taught, so he couldn't judge by experience, but it seemed that vastayan women had an easier time.  The babies -- almost always twins -- came out in slippery, off-white sacks, like foals.  He tended to slip out during the aftermath, when there was a lot of blood, high emotion, laughter, and sometimes tears.

He was _never_ there for the ceremony a few days later when the unbonded  _mataya-ke_ surrendered her children to the couple who had adopted them.

His own twins were due to the _tella-ke_ who had fathered them.  He understood and accepted it.  He couldn't keep them, and he didn't want them.  But it felt odd to imagine that another man 'owned' a part of him.  A liege lord, someone to whom he'd sworn loyalty, who could command him to do something, that was one thing.  A liege lord owned his sword, but he didn't own him.

Vaska was still not training with a sword.  Every now and then Yasuo handed him a stick, just to see what he would do with it.  Invariably he started waving it around wildly.  It was a problem several of the young vastaya seemed to be showing, especially now that he was demonstrating blade dances for them; they were showing a tendency to play around as if they held nothing more dangerous than a tree branch.  That kind of carelessness was a very dangerous vice, and he needed to get their attention before it became a habit.

A week later, he gathered his students in an open space outside the village.  In the center with him was a hooved animal called a _yupju_ , a young male destined for meat.

He drew his borrowed weapon.  "This is a sword.  This is only a sword."  He tried to catch their eyes, but most of them were looking at the _yupju_ as it calmly grazed.  "This is not a toy.  This is not for cutting grass, or marking trees, or drawing in the dirt.  This is for one thing and one thing only."

 _Wind and the sword_...

Before anyone could react, he turned and plunged his blade into the _yupju_ 's side.  He struck true; it went directly to the heart, and he drew out a blade that was red to the hilt.  The stricken animal fell, sprang up, fell again, and began feebly thrashing on the ground.

"One blade.  One purpose."  He wiped the blood off on the still-struggling animal's shoulder and walked away.

Two students dropped the class the next day.  But those who remained looked at their practice blades -- and at him -- with more respect.  And the next time he handed Vaska a stick, he simply held it at his side. 

When Yasuo finally put a sword into his adopted son's hands, it was with a stinging mixture of pride and regret.

 _You will make him a killer, as you are a killer_.

"I will make him what he must be to survive."

 _You cannot save him from a_ mataya-ke's _life_.

"I cannot leave him defenseless."

_Are you Souma now?_

"No."  But he was beginning to understand how his teacher must have felt.

Alma-desta raised her eyebrows at him on the evening of the demonstration. "I hear you are frightening your students."

"Fear opens the eyes, older sister."

"Quite so."  And she smiled and said nothing more.

* * *

The rest of that winter was perhaps the happiest time of his life.  He was moving, working; he'd found his place in the village routine; his appetite and energy were high.  And even though the _mataya-ke_ life wasn't what he wanted, the sense of being on course toward something was satisfying.  Beneki finally pronounced him fluent enough in vastayan and left him alone, so that particular irritant was gone.  Vaska was showing as much promise in bladework as any other beginner, and one or two of the others had the potential to be very good indeed.

He even found that the vastaya had some things to teach him about the wind technique.  The two air masters (as they were called) couldn't call up heavy gusts the way he could, but they had far more control.  They could manipulate bursts of air as tiny as a sigh.  It took some practice, but he eventually learned the art of channeling without a sword; he could do some very minor wind magics with his own breath, calling in more air to breathe deeper or increasing the force of his exhale.  Being so mindful of his own breath was very calming; after a while he was practicing every night, as a way to unwind after a long day.

He was almost prepared for the day he realized he was beginning to 'show'.  He'd been widening somewhat in the waist, tying his robes a bit more loosely than before, but one morning he passed his hand over an actual bump below his navel.  It was still small, but it was firm and warm.  Over the next week it seemed to double in size, and sleeping on his stomach became uncomfortable unless he padded himself out with pillows.  He tried to ignore it, but it was like trying to ignore an itch.

 _You knew this would happen_ , he told himself.  But he couldn't imagine any man being ready for this sort of thing.

He was _not_ prepared for the quickening.  The morning he first felt a flutter in his abdomen, he lay still for long moments wondering what it could be.  When it hit him that he was feeling his unborn children moving in his body, cold sweat sprang up on his forehead.  He hadn't known it was possible to feel joy and fear at the same time.

 _Something is alive in there_.

Something was alive and moving in his own body.

He lay frozen with a tremble running up his arms.  His breathing was rapid and shallow.

 _Something is alive inside me_...

The fear slowly drained, but the trembling continued.  He almost shuddered in his own skin.

_...something...in my body._

He still couldn't move.

_Something... alive...?_

He was so lost in a tangle of joy and disgust that he barely responded to his attendants when they came to wake him.  He typically wasn't much for conversation in the mornings, so they didn't say much to him nor notice how blank his eyes were.  He ate a breakfast he didn't taste and walked to the central building on numb feet.

_Something that I made...?_

Lady Alma was already receiving petitioners when he joined her and the other _mataya-ki_ who were sitting in on the morning business.  The small crowd was mainly just there to see her; on most mornings it bothered him that very few approached Alma-desta with a serious question, but today the tedium was welcome.  He was able to sit without talking to anyone, concentrating on his breathing until his emotions settled again.

Up until now, all he had made were dead things.

_I can make... alive?_

He kept his eyes down as the storm began to pass.

_I, Yasuo, the murderer?_

What remained in its wake was a calm joy.

_Alive._

From that moment on, he stopped feeling 'unnatural.'  He hadn't entirely settled his discomfort about the role the vastaya wanted him to play, but he embraced the idea of pregnancy.  What was shameful about being able to make people?  Wasn't it entirely appropriate that he should offer something in repayment for all the blood he'd spilled?  Wasn't that the crux of this agreement he'd made?

He thought of the men who had chased him, seeking the blood of the man who murdered Elder Souma.  He thought of Yone.

_If you could see me now..._

He was also surprised by how quickly he came to love the twins in his belly.  Within a week, he had developed a protective instinct so strong that he had to withdraw from direct sparring with his students, for fear that he would overreact to the entirely harmless sight of them advancing on him with a practice sword.

* * *

The sight of his fellow male _mataya-ke_ giving birth nearly drove all his exalted thoughts out of his head.  He stood near the back and watched with as much detachment as he could summon, but his throat still felt tight.

_What did you expect?  They're going to come out the same way they went in._

The naked man crouched upright over a pallet, feet braced in leather loops that were shiny from use, holding himself up with a two-handed grip on a horizontal bar.  He grunted and strained; the white bag emerging between his legs was streaked with blood.  In the fleeting seconds of calm, he gulped down air.  He kept his eyes closed most of the time, and when he opened them he was always looking to one side.

A woman he didn't recognize was there -- a midwife from another town, he thought.  She dabbed his sweating face with a wet cloth and braced him with her arm when he rested.  She looked strong; she had square shoulders and broad hands.  He couldn't see her 'expressions,' as the vastaya called their animal features, but he supposed she must be from the _yshanti_ , the stout herbivores of the plains, or maybe the _esquili_ , their equally impressive predators.

At last, gravity took over, and the white sac fell to the straw, followed by a gush of blood.  The trembling man sank into a sitting position, and she put the still-wrapped infant into his arms.  They tore the membrane together, revealing a white-streaked, squirming child.  At the infant's first wail, she smiled; it was so loving, so radiant that it transfigured her whole face.

_That's her child._

_Her_ child...?!

_That's his mate._

He almost forgot to breathe.

_How...?  How is it possible?_

The twisted white cord still ran between the man's thighs.  It seemed that reality did not particularly care what Yasuo thought was impossible.

Over the next half hour, he split his attention between the laboring man and the woman with her newborn.  She helped the doctors wash and wrap it, and then put it to her breast.  Not long after, the _mataya-ke_ began to push again and delivered the second baby.  He lay flat on the bed when it was over, holding the clean infant on his stomach while they cared for the other one.  His legs were smeared with blood to the ankles, and Yasuo could hear his breathing from where he stood.

 _How?_ he was still wondering.

He ended up staying until the afterbirth came out in an irregular mass.  That hurt, judging by the way the man groaned and showed his teeth, but he did not scream.  The doctors swarmed him, and Yasuo was about to leave when the female _tella-ke_ noticed him.  She came over, one of her twins at her breast; the suckling noise was inescapable.  It wasn't possible that she should be able to nurse as if her own body had given birth... and yet here they were.

"Is this new to you, Ionian?" she asked.  He noticed that her teeth had a triangular shape.  The gleam in her eye was wicked. 

He decided to be polite.  "Yes, _tella-keje._ "

"Have you never seen this before?"

"I have never seen many things."

She began to look amused.  She leaned forward, and he felt the touch of her sexual presence.  It was dominant but not even slightly masculine; it was all female and more than a little pleasant.  He let her push on him for a while, getting a feel for the sensation, before he retaliated with a slightly-enhanced exhale that blew her cropped hair back.  The infant in her arms squirmed.  She laughed.

"Do you want to hold him?"

He had no time to answer before she pressed her baby into his hands.  He instinctively wrapped him up close to his chest, trying to focus on the surprising heat and heft of that tiny body to anchor himself to a world that was beginning to feel so unworldly.

He looked down on that face.  It was still blotchy and red from the stresses of birth. _Born of a man and nursed by a woman who didn't give birth.  You are a wonderchild._

"Have you nothing to say?"  He felt the sunlight of her pride; the warmth, the brightness.  He reached for the expected words of congratulations, but his mind was empty.

 _To the vastaya, this is just another baby_.

"I don't understand," he said numbly.

She laughed.  "Do you need to?"

He didn't raise his eyes.  "I don't know."

She shrugged and touched her newborn's nose.  "You know he really doesn't care either way."

Yasuo pushed the tip of his finger into one chubby palm.  Instinct made the still-damp hand close up around it.  "He doesn't need me to understand him."

"No.  He just wants what any baby wants."  She gently pulled her son back into her arms.  "He wants Mama."

It was a lot to digest, and he turned away in a meditative mood.  "I'm Calin," she called after him.

"Yasuo."  He paused.  "Yasu-akije among the vastaya."

"Come see us later.  Bring your mate."  She smiled and left, sparing him the burden of trying to find an answer.

* * *

"You are troubled."

"Yes, Alma-desta."

"Come.  Tell your _mataya-kenaje_ about it."

On a pre-dawn venture that morning, he'd seen them.  Thin streams of smoke in the early morning.  Boats and tents on the shore.  Noxian raiders.

He sat next to her on the platform.  Her attendants were still styling her long hair.  "I tried to speak to the council just now."

"They did not listen to you."  Alma turned her head as far as she could.

"Some things may be true," he said, careful to keep the bitterness out of his voice.  "But they do not want to hear them from a _mataya-ke._ "

_Especially when it involves people they consider to be only the enemies of Ionians._

"What was it they did not want to hear?"

"There is a landing party of Noxians on the coast north of here, by the big river."

She looked thoughtful.  "And they will come here."

"If they find this place, yes.  I know their strategy.  They look for places to fortify and hold.  If they find one, they stay."

"No doubt the council told you to leave matters of war to them."  She, too, seemed to be keeping her voice neutral.

"They were polite."

_It's amazing how many 'polite' stone walls there are around here._

"In matters of the village, the _mataya-ke_ is still the loudest voice.  In other matters, a more subtle approach is needed."  She beckoned with one hand.  "Restalli, my love, you've been cooped up inside for too long."

"I think will go take a walk," he replied, standing.  "And I'll take one of the twins with me."

After he left, Alma turned back to Yasuo.  "Let it pass from your mind."

He tried.  But the morning audience was nothing to distract him: it was just the usual crowd of people who just wanted a word with Lady Alma.  He tried to interest himself in the way she controlled time, never letting anyone monopolize her.  Many of them noticed that Restalli and Eusaka were absent, but she replied only that they were out to stretch their legs.

Just around midday, Yasuo finally started to relax.  Audiences were almost over, and then he could take Gili and Vaska and investigate on his o-

Next to him, Alma screamed.

It was the sound of a dying thing.  He bolted to his feet; no one was touching her, nothing had harmed her.  The audience chamber filled with panicked voices.

She screamed again.  A single word.  _"Eusaka!!"_

_They've been ambushed._

He had to fight every instinct to take off on his own.  Several vastayans had run in at Alma's screams, but now they either stood against the wall or hovered awkwardly at the door.  The ones who had come in for an audience moved back and forth uneasily, like fish in a bowl.  No one knew what to say, what to do...

Eusuke was on his knees.

"You.  And you.  Stay with the lady."  Beneki had waded into the crowd and was selecting people at random.  "You and you.  Go tell the council there's been an attack.  There are invaders at... where were they, birdy?"

Yasuo swallowed his irritation.  "The north shore, at the mouth of the large river."

"Take us there."  Beneki picked two more vastayans to stay with Eusuke, gathered up the largest of those who remained, and they went north.

Smoke showed their destination long before they arrived.  The shore was littered with dying Noxians, and the tainted river met an equally tainted sea. The remaining tents were on fire.  But in a trampled hollow, Eusaka lay dead, and Restalli was barely holding on.

_How did two people do this much?_

"These are vastayan arrows," Beneki said, looking at his fellow _tella-ke_ 's body without much expression.  "I think they're from here."

"Mis-..."  Restalli was struggling to breathe.  "Mistake..."

_Friendly fire?_

Beneki was already looking at the trampled ground on the river bank.  "Most of them ran into the forest.  The fools."

"How many?"

"Marks of strange boots.  I count... maybe five."

 _A handful of Noxians loose, this close to the village_.  Yasuo put his hand on his sword.  He was actually beginning to long for combat; for the terrible clarity of battle where anyone who raised a sword against you was your enemy.  And no one would care what he did to a Noxian...

The sound near his knees was becoming a horrible gurgle.  Restalli was dying.

"I'm staying here," he heard himself say.

The _tella-ke_ and his party made no effort to talk him out of it.  He almost wished they would.  But _mataya-ki_  did not go to war.  They defended, if they had to -- if danger came within a sword's-reach of their homes, their mates, their children.  But they didn't attack.

 _Curse the vastaya_.

The man at his feet was dying.

No time to wonder if it would work.  No time to talk himself out of trying.  He dropped to his knees, put both hands to Restalli's broad chest, and inhaled.  As he drew in air, he went _outward_ , as they had taught him.  He couldn't 'be the air,' as some of the masters described it, but he could put himself in the stricken body below, catch the air as if with his own diaphragm, and breathe for him.

The first few inhales were followed by a violent burst of coughing; red foam spattered from Restalli's mouth.  But Yasuo had gone beyond fear.  He kept breathing.  He held a steady rhythm and ignored whatever sounds he heard; nothing mattered beyond the next breath.  Inhale followed exhale followed inhale as one foot follows another.

He lost track of time.  He lost awareness of his own body.  He was the man on the ground, looking up, feeling pressure on his chest but still breathing.  In.  Out.  In.  Out.

When a hand shook him out of it, he gasped.  Restalli did too.  He looked up, blinking, at a fuzzy vastayan face.  Not furry -- though the face was that too -- but out of focus and rapidly growing darker...

A splash of water and snow broke the spell, but he still could barely understand what he was hearing.  He'd been on his knees so long his feet and calves were numb.  He heard "Get up" and "We've got him" but not much more.  He couldn't stand without their help.  He was too dizzy to keep his balance.

It was the next day before his head cleared to the point where he could understand what had happened.

The vastayan council hadn't dismissed his concerns after all.  They'd sent scouts to confirm a Noxian encampment.  Then they'd come with greater numbers and attacked in force.  Restalli and Eusaka had run into the fleeing enemy; the vastayans hadn't seen them as they shot down the Noxians.  When Yasuo arrived, they were already pursuing the stragglers into the forest.  Beneki and his reinforcements had broken up the final standoff, and they had taken the group's leader alive.

Restalli would live.  But not even that could console Alma-desta.  She hid herself in the _mataya-ki_ residence, off-limits to all but her own kind, off-limits even to her surviving mates.  Eusuke, the surviving twin, was nearly as devastated.

_If only..._

That was what you thought at a moment like this.  If only.

* * *

Vastayans had ways to break a man's mind.  Yasuo was told the rituals were off-limits to _mataya-ke_ , and for once he was glad to stay behind the wall.  When the Noxian leader was brought to the council, he shuffled like a sleepwalker.  He drooled.  His eyes didn't quite focus.

 _Feel no pity. Eusaka is dead_.

Yasuo wouldn't have been at the questioning except that they needed a translator.  The man spoke Noxian and simplified Ionian and that was it.  No vastayan mind work could teach someone a new language.

He put on a mask of indifference and relayed the questions and answers without color or comment.  The man was Commodore Arthaxis Rej, a respected legionnaire now slightly past his prime.  Stung, as many in the Noxian high command were, by their failure to capture Seons'e, he had won permission to take a small band of volunteers to scout a way in that would avoid the ruined harbor.  They had made several expeditions to map out the coast (the maps, of course, were already burned).

"Do your supervisors expect you to report back?" one of the council asked.

"Yes.  I have a contact waiting at Port Eranses."

"What will you tell him?"

"There is a clear and easy way to the target city along the coast.  The forest is dense but full of game.  The animal-people do not seem to have a town there."

"Ionian, do you report his words faithfully?" asked an older man in the audience.

"Do not call a _mataya-ke_ an Ionian," snapped a councilwoman.  "And do not question him."

Yasuo kept his eyes forward, but a slow-building sickness had begun in his lower stomach.

"What is the last thing you remember?" a councilman asked the Noxian.

"Fording the large delta."

There was sudden relief in their postures.  Yasuo hid his growing dismay.

 _As long as they think the Noxians are only a threat to Ionia, they will do nothing_.

A few more questions confirmed his growing fears.  The council wanted to know whether Noxus would keep their patrols to the coasts; when it seemed that they would, they sent the prisoner away and conferred among themselves.

There were rustles in the gallery.  A lot of eyes were flicking his way.

_....no true vastayan..._

True enough.  He wasn't.

_...always going to be loyal to Ionia..._

Also true.  Possibly.

_...comes from Sanshe..._

He wondered how they'd learned that.

_...just trying to get us all killed..._

All killed?  Even the twins in his belly?

"Yasu-akije," the lead councilwoman said.  "Do these comments bother you?"

"Aren't they true?" yelled a voice from the crowd.

He took a slow breath.  A little breeze circled the chamber and quieted.  "I am Ionian.  When I am done here, I will return to Ionia and die an Ionian."

Their collective intake of breath startled him.  He hurried on.

"But I am beginning to understand politics.  I suspect the vastayans of this village would rather see Noxians fighting Ionians."  He chuckled without humor and spread his hands.  "Among the Ionians, they would rather have vastayans fighting vastayans."

That raised angry mutters.

"What if we send the man back to his officer with news that the way is clear to Sanshe?" asked the councilwoman in perfectly neutral tones.

"I don't think it will work.  A lot of Noxian men were with him.  His officer will notice they are gone."

"Do you say that just to save your town?" called out the older man who had spoken out before.

"Gre'etu!"

 _Politics.  So territorial.  My village, my circle, my life._  

"Sanshe is full of innocent people.  What is wrong if he wants to save it?"  The councilwoman was twisting her fingers on her staff.

"He's one of them!  He said it!  He's with them.  He's not with us."  Gre'etu was turning red under his heavy white whiskers.  "Wouldn't he like it if Noxus came after us?  Solve his problem?"

Yasuo put both hands over his stomach.  The thought of Noxians threatening his children was deepening the sick feeling in his throat.

Just as he began to wonder how long he could keep his composure, a younger councilwoman emerged from the group.  She went to her knees before him.  "Yasu-akije, forgive this impiety."

"Ah..."  He took a step back.

" _Mataya-ki_ are blessed with the wisdom of the Maker.  Forgive the council for not allowing you a chance to pass judgment."

He managed not to back up any further, but he had seldom felt so embarrassed.  Was she mocking him?

"Yes, _mataya-ke_ ," said the shrill voice of Gre'etu.  "What do you in your sacred wisdom say we should do with the prisoner?"

 _Justice_...

The young woman got back up but did not return to her seat.  Still, he found it easier to think without someone... kneeling at him.

 _Start with the crime_.  "Honorable council, do not forget that the prisoner caused the death of a vastayan man."

They looked uneasy.  They should.  Vastayan arrows had taken Eusaka's life.  He suppressed a smile and went on.

"He also injured another man, who might die from it.  And he has caused much distress to Lady Alma.  Those are his crimes against vastaya.  There is no justice if he does not answer for them."

"You are correct," said the lead councilwoman thoughtfully.  "This man has offended vastaya.  It must be considered in his sentencing."

 _I see.  You'll give me something if I give you a way to pass Eusaka's blood onto someone else.  Politics_...  He was getting a sense for how the game was played, and frankly he didn't like it at all.  But...

"You have asked for the wisdom of the Maker.  That was wise, for this is something only another _mataya-ke_ would understand."  He wished he could run the Noxian through with a sword himself; it would be less messy.  "You must give this man over to Alma-naje."

That caused another ripple of shock.  "She will kill him!"

"She may.  But you must give her that chance.  If you ignore what she has suffered, there is no justice."

 _Let her take it out on him and not on you_.

"So let it be.  We should respect the wisdom of the Child of the Maker."  The lead councilwoman rapped the floor with her staff, and Yasuo wondered if he'd just heard the loss of his last scrap of nobility.

* * *

The next few days were ugly.

Alma did not kill the Noxian.  But he didn't watch to see what she actually did do.  The bound-up and permanently brain-shattered man was left at the scheduled drop-off.  Meanwhile, vastayans from the village cleaned up the ambush site, removing the bodies and all signs that a fight had taken place.

 _It won't stop the war, but maybe it can delay things for a while_.

After a week in seclusion, Alma-desta emerged.  But she did not hold court that day.  Nor the next.  Nor the following week.

Restalli healed enough to leave his bed, but he couldn't move freely.  There was no sign Eusuke was any closer to recovery.  Only Beneki seemed in his right mind, and he was probably too busy to feel anything but tired.

Or so Yasuo had thought, until the _tella-ke_ came to him with a face like a rainstorm.  "Alma-naje sends word that you are to hear judgments tomorrow in her name."

"Of course," he replied.

What else could he say?

And so the following morning, he judged vastayans, wondering if he looked as awkward as he felt, with no company but Beneki's mocking presence.

 _This is your right.  This is your duty_ , he told himself.

 _How long?_ answered a weary voice in the back of his mind.

_Until..._

He didn't know what word should follow.

_Just 'until...'_


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your interest in this story, but please do not prompt me for Chapter 13. It is in the works and will come out when it is ready.

Somewhere in the early days of the bad month, as Yasuo came to think of it, he and Beneki went to the sacred caves to tend to Eusaka's body. Someone had already washed off the blood, but the line of puckered wounds down his side showed where the arrows had struck.

 _Lung... lung... liver... that one might have been heart_.

His pale skin showed a pattern of open rosettes.  Not _iothira_ ; possibly _frelann_.  Those mountain cats were thick of fur and adapted to the cold -- and, in Ionia, vanishingly rare.

 _I hope he died quickly_.

There was an old scar near his neck.  It looked like a bite.  "Odd."

"Lady Alma," said Beneki.  It was the first thing he'd said since they arrived.

"Alma-desta is a biter?"

"Don't jest."  The man pulled down the collar of his coat to show a similar mark, still red. 

Yasuo shrugged.  "I don't care what you do in private."

He snorted.  "Do you seriously not know what a mate mark looks like?"

 _Well, no_.  "Like that, I suppose."

"Ionian."

"Obviously."  Yasuo went back to brushing oil on the cold skin.  He pretended the task took all of his attention, but he could feel the pressure of Beneki's eyes on his face.

"What happened to your nose?" the _tella-ke_ finally asked.

He rubbed his knuckle across the old scar.  "The first time or the second time?"

"First."

"Yone."

"Your brother again?"

"Again?"  It was Yasuo's turn to snort.  "I was maybe 12.  I was playing around with a sword, like all beginners do.  Yone saw me and gave me a tap.  His aim was off."

"What about the second?"

"I was attacked by a _xue_."

The man laughed.  "A carrion bird?"

"A madwoman from Noxus."  He shook his head; those days seemed so long ago.  "She kept chasing me.  She wanted a fight."

" _Xuei_ are persistent."

 _That she was_.  Yasuo took the end of a length of cloth and started wrapping Eusaka's body, starting at the feet.  It was just the initial binding; the professionals would do an overlay of crossing strips before the body was put out for the funeral that evening.  Traditionally this task fell to the deceased's family, but neither Alma nor Eusuke were up to it and the rest of their connections were in another town.

"Was her actual name Xue?"

"No.  I called her that.  Her name was Riven."

_Riven._

Add it to the list of names who would laugh if they saw him now.

"Where is she-"

"What is a mate mark?" he interrupted.

"What do Ionians do when they swear to each other?" Beneki asked.  "If they do."

 _'If they do_. _'_   "Trade tokens.  Rings, knives, something personal."

"Hm.  Vastayans bite."

 Yasuo sat back, trying to decide if any of the half-dozen questions that had just sprung up in his head were worth asking.  "Why?"

"Why rings and knives?"

"Why _teeth?"_

"For the scar," replied Benki with a shrug.

 _I'm not going to get anything out of him_.

They wrapped Eusaka's arms against his sides.  His head had to be bound with a complicated loop to keep it bowed to his chest.  Before they finished covering his hair, Beneki put a hand on his head and said something Yasuo couldn't understand.  It sounded tired and vaguely sad.

"Well.  That's that."

Yasuo made a neutral sound.

They left the body for the professionals and emerged, blinking, into early spring sunlight.  "When Salevi died, Lady Alma was pregnant within the year," Beneki said to the air.

"Everyone grieves in their own way," replied Yasuo just as absently.

"And if her grief might need some 'help' from me?"

One Alma-desta.  One _mataya-ke_ impulse to breed.  Two permanent mates.  And Beneki.  When Alma had held three permanent attachments, his 'vote' in the vastayan mating calculus had not mattered.  This time he might be the tie-breaker.  "Is that your will?"

"Children are always a _tella-ke'_ s will," he replied.

Truly... and that was the heart of the problem.  Now that he found himself -- cautiously -- looking for potential partners among the vastaya, he found that all of them wanted children.  That was the point of being _tella-ke:_  seeking a _mataya-ke._   Status in vastaya was all about children.  And now that he had developed enough of a belly to prove his fertility, he was discovering what it was like to be courted.

"The only choice is the choice of mate," Beneki continued.

Even by him.

"Alma-desta has the greater _no'ori_."  That was their word for honor, or pride-of-place.

"I would settle for less, to have someone more my age and energy."  His gaze was direct.

There it was.  As open an offer as he was likely to get from the man.  "Look elsewhere.  I am not staying."

Beneki laughed.  It was amused, but there was an odd, brittle edge to the sound.  Yasuo decided it was a good time to exit the conversation. 

"Farewell, _tella-keje_."

"Farewell, birdy."

* * *

The funeral ceremonies were private -- not that he would have wanted to attend anyway -- but Lady Alma still did not resume her public duties afterward, nor did anyone seem to expect her to.  He served as her proxy for an entire week of mornings, then a second.  His _tella-ke_ attendants varied; it was often Beneki, though sometimes it was someone he didn't know.  Once it was Restalli, who thanked him in a nonspecific sort of way and clearly didn't want to discuss it further.

 _Embarrassing to be saved by a_ mataya-ke, _I suppose.  Or maybe he's just worried about her._

He never asked why he was the one Alma-desta sent.  Nor did anyone who approached him.  Apparently no one questioned the word of a _mataya-ke_ of her stature.  But they asked him other questions, occasionally very personal ones.  Where was he born?  How had he learned their language?  Why didn't he look vastayan?  

When the chamber was full, he kept his answer short: he was raised Ionian and distant vastayan heritage was common where he grew up.  But when there were only a handful of questioners -- which was the usual situation -- he told the story of the _krescherei_ , and how he had come to their village to honor the family debt.  He feared, and hoped, that one day one of them would claim to know the woman who had lost her children to Ionia, but no one did.  They merely looked at him with expressions ranging from respect to pity -- and, occasionally, contempt.

"You show too much," Beneki commented one day.  " _Mataya-ki_ are symbols, not people."

" _Mataya-ki_ have no flaws?"

"No.  They are holy vessels of the Maker's wisdom."

Yasuo didn't even try not to roll his eyes.  "They made an Ionian their judge.  They're going to get an Ionian."

"They don't see that.  They didn't really see Alma-naje either.  Though they do see that you're a man."

_At least they get that much._

"Which makes you _extra_ sacred, if you hadn't figured that out."

"Gili and Vaska said something about that," he replied, his thoughts drifting elsewhere.

 _I haven't spoken to them in a while_.

"Those two brothers who follow you?"  He snorted, amused.

"Yes.  Have you seen them lately?"

"I wouldn't go looking for them right now, if that's what you're thinking."

"Why not?"

"The rains are over.  The days are getting longer.  Spring is here."  The _tella-ke_ showed his teeth.  "You can't have forgotten."

He looked away.

Spring was when he had first noticed his body's betrayal.  Spring meant fever and chills and the feeling of his skin clinging to him like wet armor.  Spring was the time when his emotions went so erratic that not even Yone wanted to be around him.

"They're just children," he said to the ground.

"No, birdy.  They're _mataya-ki_  at the start of their careers.  And trust me, right now they don't want anything to do with you."

It was yet another conversation with Beneki that he ended by simply walking away.  But the man was right.  For the rest of that week, none of his _mataya-ki_ students came to weapons practice.  This meant he was largely training his archers -- which was fun -- but it wasn't enough to distract him from his thoughts.

 _You can't protect them.  Not from this_.

But Gili.  But Vaska...!

_Sooner or later, this was going to happen._

Curse the vastaya!

One evening, he ventured within sight of the residence where the junior _mataya-ki_ lived.  In a circle of candlelight outside the front door, a hopeful crowd of young _tella-ki_ had gathered, under the watchful eye of several matronly vastayans.  Young faces peered from the windows, watching, pointing, whispering to each other.  The eager men (and a couple of women) who stood outside mostly ignored him, though one or two made a grab for his sleeve as he passed.

He finally saw Gili, standing in the thickest group close to the center.  When their eyes met, _something_ crossed his expression; his playful son became a person he didn't recognize.  And even at that distance he saw the _look_ , the focused, hate-filled stare of a man who could and would put a sword straight through his heart.

It struck him numb.  He turned and left, and Gili's gaze burned into his back the entire way.

* * *

Seeing his own death in his son's eyes should have been the nadir of the bad month, but there was worse to come. And it started with a perfectly innocent observation.

He had finally decided to honor Calin's invitation and meet her and her mate.  Their house was in moderate disarray, though not as much as he had expected for the parents of newborn twins.  "There are a lot of helpers in the early days," she explained with a wry smile.  "Everyone wants to be named honor-parent."

Ionia had a similar system.  It was regarded as more a burden than an honor, but in child-poor vastaya things were obviously different.

Cenda, the father, was making a rapid recovery.  He still moved like a man in discomfort, and his eyes showed his weariness, but he smiled.  "There are no words," he said.  "I'd been dreading it for so long."

There was a flask on the counter, but they stuck to tea and sliced fruit as an apparent courtesy to him.  (He wished he could have had the wine).  Over the next hour, he learned that they were both first-time parents, basking in the glow of triumph and a heady dose of relief.  It was rare for a female _tella-ke_ and a male _mataya-ke_  to successfully pair up.  "In the vastaya, being different is only valuable if you're good at it," she explained haltingly.

"I've seen that too," he replied.

"You have to justify... everything.  What you do, what you wear, what you eat.  Everyone looks at you like you're an impostor."  She smiled another of those radiant smiles.  "I don't have to prove anything to anyone now."

She leaned on Cenda, and Yasuo felt the old ache in the back of his throat.  The longing for that kind of contentment; the sorrow that it couldn't last...

"May I ask you something?" he ventured toward the end of the visit.  "Why did you ask me to bring my mate?"

"I... assumed you had one."  She toyed with a piece of fruit.  "You...ah..."

One of the infants started to cry, making both of them jump up a little too quickly.  "Excuse us."

Social graces were not for him, but he knew the mood in the room had changed.  "I might have misheard," he offered.

"No," Cenda said.  "She is a Child of the Protector.  If you already have a mate, she can smell it on you."

She flashed an apologetic smile at him as she hoisted the crying infant on her shoulder.

"Is it because I'm...?" Yasuo gestured at his belly.

Both of them shook their heads briefly.  "I don't... think so," he said.  "We know the sire.  Andem.  He's too attached to his wife to bond with someone else."

"Vastayans can't bond and not know it," Calin continued.

He waved his hands at himself again.  "Ionian."

"Let me see."  She came close to him.  Again he felt the 'push' of a _tella-ke_ 's sexual presence as she inhaled slowly.  "I see it... here.  What do you keep in here?"

Her finger was touching the silk bag at his throat.  With reluctant fingers, he opened it... and all became clear.  The white-blonde lock of hair twisted around Yone's.

"Ah.  Whose is that?"

His voice barely emerged.  "Hers."

It had been folded up in her letter.  _"Madman.  I hate you.  Come home."_

"Whose?"

"The madwoman."

He did not expect the teasing grin Cenda flashed at his mate, nor her guilty giggle.  "What?"

"When she first started courting me, I called her that."

"He called me worse," she said with a note of pride.

Cenda smirked.  "You stole my underwear."

"You stole my shoes!"

"You stalked me when I was swimming!"

"You wouldn't let me see you!"

"It was _night!_   I was _naked!"_

"That is courting?"  Yasuo interrupted.

"Yes," they said in unison.

Calin chuckled.  "The vastaya mating dance can be... interesting."

"I'm sure _your_ madwoman didn't steal _your_ shoes," her mate added.

He couldn't find it in himself to smile.  "No.  She just stalked me.  She followed me from the northern snows to my own brother's grave.  She told me I needed her.  She told me I was dying."  Anger and bitterness crept into his voice.  "She attacked me at every chance.  She wouldn't listen to anything I said.  She left me with _this_."

Their eyes followed his finger to the scar on his nose.

He sighed.  " _That_ is courting?"

"So how do you have a lock of her hair?" Calin asked mildly.

"She sent it to me."

"Why did you keep it?"

He dropped his gaze.  "I don't know."

"You don't know why?" she prompted.

 _Because I've never forgotten how her eyes burned_...

"I wanted to."  His voice was almost a whisper.  "I just don't know why."

A second plate of sliced fruit appeared in front of him.  He saw Cenda's grin from the corner of his eye as the _mataya-ke_ took his sleeping son from Calin's arms.

"Well.  If you don't have plans for the evening, I believe you have them now."

He told them his story, starting with the _krescherei_ tale and ending on the night he set the 'Black Mother' loose on Seons'e.  They listened with ill-concealed amusement, but he was too annoyed to find it funny.  "Anyway, that was the last I saw of her.  I avenged my master and turned myself in.  She sent me the hair and a letter, but I haven't actually seen her since."

"I've heard worse courtship stories."  Calin had one of the twins to her breast.

He shook his head helplessly.  "I barely know her."

"She left a mark on you.  That could be enough," Cenda said.

"You're certain she wasn't just trying to kill me?"

Calin's teeth showed as she smirked.  "Among the vastaya, the surest sign that two people are going to bond is that they go crazy around each other."

 _Curse the vastaya_.  "So, the stalking..."

"Not unusual for a strong _tella-ke_.  We know what we want when we see it.  Or smell it."

She was of the predators.  It explained so much... and raised so many more questions.  "I never thought of her as vastayan..."

Cenda frowned.  "Did you think you were?"

"Ionians don't think of it that way.  We're just people with stories."

"What did she look like?" Calin asked.

"Small.  Lean.  She was built like a plains cat.  She was strong, though."  He remembered the way she'd wielded her awkward sword.  "Strong in spirit too.  Stubborn like no woman I've ever known.  And her eyes..."

They leaned forward, but he barely saw them.  All he could see was her.

"They were... almost gold."

There had been such desperate courage in her face as she tried to hold him back.

_If only..._

'If only' nothing.  He knew he wouldn't have listened.

_Oh, madwoman._

"Dark brown hair and gold eyes.  I'm sure she was beautiful."

He turned to Calin.  "What?"

"I said she was-"

"I heard.  But her hair... her hair... wasn't brown."  He showed her the light and dark strands again.  " _This_ was hers."

Her pause was awkward; her voice when she spoke was reluctant.  "I don't smell the bond on that one."

 _Oh, curse the Maker and all the gods_...

They exchanged looks.  "Whose?" Cenda asked.

"Yone.  My brother."  He pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes.  "My older brother."

There was no way to salvage the evening after that.  Sooner rather than later, he thanked them for their insights and left, wondering if he could ever go under their roof again.

* * *

The next week was an exercise in trying not to think.  He'd done it before, but this time he didn't have the luxury of drink nor the freedom of swordplay, though he was nearly as alone.  He couldn't bear the thought of visiting Calin again.  Gili and Vaska were still out of reach.  Alma-desta was in seclusion, and most vastayans kept a respectful distance.  He would have welcomed Beneki -- the man had always spoken freely, at least -- but the _tella-ke_ was also nowhere to be found.  Yasuo suspected it was more than coincidence that wherever he was, Beneki wasn't.

 _There was something about Yone he didn't want to tell me_.

He wondered how the man had known.  Perhaps it came with being a  _tella-ke_.

 _I wouldn't be angry.  I would just tell him that he was right_.

 _Mataya-ke_ duties and his weapons class weren't enough to fill a day.  He tried sleeping, he tried playing his flute.  Eventually, at a whim, he asked if there were any way to send a letter.  He received paper, ink, and wax within an hour, but it took him over a day to find the words.

He wrote to Elder Issaku, using High Ionian to deter eavesdroppers.  He tried to keep to the facts: he was living in a certain village and was due to bear twins in a few months.  He included everything he knew about the Noxian scouting party that was trying to find a route to Seons'e.  He said that he would return to Ionia as soon as he could travel, and that he hoped things were well in Ginys'e.  But when he folded up the letter and sealed it, he felt the queasiness of anxiety.

The problems he'd fled months ago were still there.  In fact, they were probably worse.  Issaku hadn't wanted to execute him when he was just a 'hero' to a group of vastayans.  What would he do with a full-fledged _mataya-ke_ that all of vastaya would claim as their asset, assuming the vastaya would let him leave in the first place?

He was convinced that Noxus would seize this chunk of Ionia if they moved in force now.  The provincialism of politics was just too strong.  The vastayans wouldn't do anything if it looked like only Ionians would be harmed, and the Ionians would feel the same about them.  Noxus, for its own part, would gleefully stir up the conflict, and then strike when they were weakened or distracted.  The alliance marriage, as Issaku had put it, might still be standing, but building a real partnership took time.

And on top of everything, he was discovering something in himself that shamed him.  Ever since the madwoman's face had appeared in his mind's eye, his will to live had returned.  He didn't want to die.  He wanted to watch Gili and Vaska become men.  He wanted to see her again.  The madwoman, the wild Noxian _xue_...

_Riven._

He wrote her a letter.  He never sent it.  There wasn't much more to it than "I'm sorry."  There wasn't much more he could say.

It was a vast relief when Alma-desta sent him a message at the end of the week: "Prepare to travel.  You will accompany me on a memorial journey in two days."

Yasuo passed the word to his attendants and let them take care of arrangements.  They didn't question it.  Nor did he.  No one questioned the Lady Alma.

* * *

 _So this is what we came to see_.

The cliff rose almost sheer from the ground, backlit by the last rays of the sun.  At its foot was a reflecting pool, but what wasn't what caught the eye.  All along its length were sculptures, statues, reliefs, or engravings sacred to the vastayan dead.  At the center was a dying  _iothira._   She lay prone, her twisted back pierced with arrows; her mouth was panting and her eyes were squinted nearly shut.  The cliff had been hollowed around her to make a den; her claws seemed to pierce the very stone.  All of the monuments had vastayans looking up at them, but the largest group stood in front of her.

"This is where we honor those who were killed by outsiders," many of the vastaya said to him.  From their tone, he had no trouble telling which of them considered _him_ an outsider.

_Do they think this belly is wine?  Do they think these robes are fashion?_

Alma-desta sat on a cushion at the edge of the pool with her feet carefully wrapped and her mates standing close by.  Curious vastayans hovered at the edge of the group, obviously wanting to approach, but a glare from Beneki warned off all but the boldest.  She had traveled two days on foot to scatter Eusaka's ashes in the water.  It had been a long and painful journey.  There was not a person in the caravan, from her mates to the smallest vastayan child, who would not have carried her if she'd asked.  By the second afternoon, even the horses were looking concerned.  But she would not accept more than a supporting arm from Restalli.  When they'd finally arrived, the residents of the local village met her with shocked silence, but she had asked only where the memorial was. 

Yasuo had come with her, but now he stood a little apart, ready to leave if she asked him to.

She turned to him as if they were alone.  "Little brother, what are the funeral customs of Ionia?"

"It depends," he answered.  "Higher ranks and those with money are given to the sky for a year, then their bones are washed and put in caskets.  Civilians and the poor are cremated.  Most soldiers are too, though in the old tradition they are buried."

"Planted in the clean earth with all their wordly goods?"

He pretended not to hear the scorn in her voice.  "Buried in what they died in, except their weapons will be broken."

"Why?"

 _Humor her.  She is looking for a distraction_.  "It is a dishonor for a warrior to go naked, but in the Bright Country, no one will need to be armed."  He waited, but she didn't respond.  "And sometimes there is an Exchange."

"Which is?"

He paused to gather his thoughts.  "When there is unfinished business between the one who died and one of the living, the living person will take something belonging to the dead and leave something of their own in return."

"Why?" she asked again.

"Because then they will have to see each other again."

"I have never heard the Lady Alma ask so many direct questions," said Beneki into the quiet that followed.

"The Lady Alma's feet hurt."  Her reply was tart.  "We are not in Erinnu.  I do not have to be their icon."

The sunset glow had now faded from the sky, and the brightest stars were coming out.  This seemed to be the signal that the garden was closed to the public; the group of vastayan hangers-on was leaving, and those who lingered were being ushered out by the lady's attendants.

He shifted his weight.  "Shall I go, Alma-desta?"

"No.  Stay."

He and her mates settled on the grass, and they sat without speaking for almost an hour.  It was peaceful.  While the vastayan village which tended this monument was just behind them, the little clearing was so quiet that they could hear the water lapping the banks.

When at last the full moon cast its glow on the wall, the reflecting pool flooded with light.  The threads of vapor rising from the water looked almost substantial, tangible; a meadow of lambent grass for the moon horses to graze.

"Come, Eusuke," she whispered.

The silent _tella-ke_ brought forth a wrapped parcel and opened it in front of them.  Yasuo had seen human ashes before -- they were 'ashes' only by metaphor -- but these were closer to the image.  The small mound on the silk looked like soft white sand.

Alma and Eusuke each took an edge of the cloth and solemnly tipped the ashes into the water.  The white pile merged with the white mist as it slid beneath the surface; it almost made no sound as it vanished.  Only a ghost of ultrafine powder remained, drifting like the smoke of an extinguished candle.

 _It seems short_ , he thought, _but it's enough_. 

How like the natural people of vastaya not to linger over death.  Trees did not mourn.  Nor did _kalemondi_.  Only humans made such a fuss over something that happens all the time, everywhere, to everyone.

Such was the peace of the place that, when the shape first appeared over the water, he was not alarmed.  He simply watched in wonder as the image of a large  _frelann_ rose from the mist and walked a few steps forward.  The wisps bent under his paws like soft grass.  The heavy tail waved behind him.

Eusuke gasped and scrambled to his feet.  The cat looked at him.  There was no sound from either of them, but Yasuo knew they must be speaking because the cat sat back on his great haunches and squinted in feline affection.  He didn't realize Eusuke was crying until he saw something glisten on the man's face.  He looked away.  It wasn't polite to watch a grown man's tears.

The cat -- or Eusaka, or a spirit -- turned its attention to Restalli and Beneki next.  The older man said, "Of course," and then, "No, you were."  Beneki nodded and said, "It was my honor."  When the spirit addressed his _mataya-ke_ , he apparently spoke for a long time, and Alma-desta listened with a slowly widening smile.  But her only response was, "Give my love to Salevi."

Then the glowing eyes turned on him.

_"You."_

He jumped.  It was like the Mother Bird of the Freljord, but... louder.

_"I see your heart.  I forgive."_

"I am sorry," he said in a near-whisper.

_"You cannot carry the living and the dead.  Let him go."_

"What?"

_"Do not grieve."_

It seemed that all of them could hear that.  Eusuke wiped his face with his sleeve, though the tears kept falling.  Alma continued to smile.

The great _frelann_ stood up, arched, and sprang up in a leap that launched him far over their heads.  They all turned to look, but the ghostly figure flew directly toward the moon, and Yasuo could not be certain he saw it again.

* * *

Life in the memorial village fell into something closer to the regular pattern after that night.  The villagers all but begged Alma-desta to stay with them a few extra days since there were no resident _mataya-ki_.  And they showed more interest in Yasuo than he was used to.

"They think you're her acolyte," Beneki commented.  "I'll bet you've never been an acolyte before."

He talked to many of them, individually or in groups, about the _astenai_ and their campaign to steal the vulnerable youngsters and sell them to Ionia.  At the time it was mostly because he could see their bitterness at their loss, but they made it clear -- repeatedly -- that if he didn't have a fixed destination, he would be welcome in their village.

"To do what?" he blurted out the first time they offered.

"To be our _mataya-ke_ ," came the response, as if it were obvious.

"You can't be surprised," Alma-desta said to him afterward.  "You show the physical evidence.  They will take that without strong expressions."

He met that with what he hoped was polite silence, but in his mind he saw ropes.  Beautiful silk ropes, threaded with gold, but ropes all the same.

Why was there not even room for a breath between what he was and what he must do?

* * *

The night before they left, he went to the memorial garden after public hours.  The _iothira_ suffered her stone agonies in private; the moon hadn't yet risen and no one else was there.

_"Let him go."_

If it were going to happen, it would have to be now.  He drew his borrowed vastayan blade and began -- awkwardly -- to dance the forms.

Grace wasn't possible.  Neither was accuracy.  The swelling of his abdomen threw off his balance, and his hips seemed wider than they used to be.  But all he wanted was some physical movement to occupy his surface thoughts.  He left it to his feet and sword to stay out of each other's way and focused on his breathing.  After a while he wasn't consciously directing his body at all, just turning, turning, remembering.

_Yone._

The thought was an ache, but he didn't push it aside.  He lived in the ache.  He danced in it.  And when he accepted it, the pain mellowed and became bittersweet.

_No one was nobler than you._

He started on the last two forms.  He didn't even remember the steps, but his feet were still moving.

 _No man ever had a truer friend or brother_.

Finally, he came to a halt.  He sheathed his sword and sank down to the grass.  He was almost winded; he felt his heart pounding, but he couldn't hear himself breathe.

 _I miss you_.

He closed his eyes and let the grief wash over him.  A host of memories, good and bad, rushed into his waiting mind, and he accepted them all.  He didn't condemn himself.  He didn't wallow in regret.  He simply watched until he finally saw Yone -- Yone as he truly was, not as Yasuo had always seen him.

_You were caught between love and duty all your life, and it broke you.  You never knew what you were, and you were never free to ask._

He had no idea if he were crying.

_If you had known, you might still be alive._

He let his thoughts flow with no fear of where they were going.

_Ionia failed you._

He opened his eyes.  The moon was setting behind the memorial wall.  He looked down to see two clumps of sod clenched in his fists.  He tilted his head forward and hot tears ran down the sides of his nose.  For long moments, he did not move.

"Curse Ionia."

No one was there but the _iothira_ and the souls she guarded.  No one heard.

He opened the bag around his neck with dirty fingers.  It took a moment to separate the dark brown lock from the blonde.  He struck a vastayan fire stick and stared into the flame.

 _Great Mother Cat, receive another son_.

The wisp of hair went up faster than he wanted it to, in a crackle and an acrid whiff of smoke.  The last remnant of Yone was a sooty trace in the palm of his hand, and he closed his fingers to keep it from blowing away.

 _Spirit of the Protector, accept one of your own_.

He crawled to the edge of the water and went into the deepest and most formal bow, with his arms outstretched.

"Yone of Seons'e, Yona-keje of Sanshe,  _tella-ke_ of vastaya..."

He felt both hands drop below the surface.

"...be at peace."

 _And may you find the home there that you never found in Ionia_.

Stillness fell.  He could hear nothing, not even his heartbeat.  There was soft light, and the warmth of breath; there was a laughter he could feel rather than hear.  There was the silence of close companions who ask the question and give the answer before a word is spoken.

_"In the Bright Country, no one will need to go armed."_

He knew the moment the ashes washed from his hands.  All at once he dropped back to earth: he felt the cold of the water, the ache in his muscles, the beginnings of a cramp in his side.  He drew his fingers out and dried them on his robes; the grass tickled, his nose was running, and those stupid ribbons were in his eyes again.

 _It's not the end.  It's just an ending_.

He pulled himself up and wiped his nose with his sleeve.  His attendants would notice it, of course, but only after they commented on the mud, the grass stains, and all the rest of it.

 _Sorry.  You lined a birdcage with silk.  The fault is yours_.

He chuckled.  

_Now then..._

He pulled the remaining lock of hair from his pouch.  It was pale, almost blue in the starlight.  He held it to his nose, but he caught her scent with his memory.

 _Madwoman, come.  Come.  I've cleaned out my house.  I'm ready for you.  If you still want this madman, come and knock.  I will open the door this time_.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The iothira monument is based on a real thing: the Lion Monument of Lucerne. It commemorates the Swiss Guard who were killed trying to defend the royal family in the French Revolution. (More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Monument)


	14. Intermission

Hey, my beloved and patient readers.  It's going to be a while before Chapter 13 is out, so in the meantime I'll try something new.

Between now and when Chapter 13 is posted, post a question to one of the characters in the comments to this chapter and I'll post it and the reply here.  You may ask Yasuo or any of the other characters, though bear in mind if the answer is spoiler-y or the character wouldn't know the answer, I'll have them decline to answer.

The floor is open, so ask away, and thank you again for reading.

* * *

Questions for Yasuo:

**Are you finally going to pursue a relationship with Riven?**

Ah...  That's up to her.  But I'm going to try to see her again.  I feel like she deserves that much.

 

**Did you think about names?**

Names? *puzzled look*  Do you mean names for my children?

 **Yes, names for your children**.

...no.  To name something is to own it, and I can't let myself think that way.

 

**Do you really want to be with Riven because you finally fell for her or just because you feel bad after all you did to her and want to repay, not love?**

I...  I... *vastly confused*  'Love'?  It's too early to talk about love.  I barely know the madwoman.  All I can honestly say right now is that I want to see her again.

You make it sound like I think of her as my debt obligation.  I don't.  I don't think I mistreated her.  Yes, I sent her into Seons'e covered in dead _xuei_ , but she was going to be in it one way or the other.  She is strong.  She was going to make it out alive.  I knew her well enough for... *trails off*

All right.  I didn't know.  At the time, I didn't care.  I should apologize for that.  But she was a connection I didn't want.  I thought I was going to die.  Nothing was going to matter after that night, because one way or another I was going to be dead, and it was what I wanted.

Things are different now.  I want to live.  I want a future.  I want to find her again and... just see what a future with her might look like.  That's all.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Blossomfall](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17121185) by [CamiSama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CamiSama/pseuds/CamiSama)




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